The years fly by, and generations come and go and come back again, but not much changes at Davenport's Pizza Palace in Mountain Brook.

The hand-tossed, thin-crust pizzas are ladled with the same secret sauce that Rex and Ardyce Hollis prepared when they first opened their neighborhood pizzeria in 1964, and the pies are topped with old-school ingredients such as pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green peppers and black olives.

"We get a lot of comments about that," Heather Norris, the Hollises' daughter, says. "They'll say, 'We're so glad y'all have remained traditional, with traditional toppings.

"There are actually people that don't want that kind of gourmet pizza with chicken, pesto, artichoke, whatever out there that's really weird and trendy."

Through those 52 years, the circle has remained unbroken.

Norris, who grew up in her mother and father's family business, started working the cash register at Davenport's when she was 16 and has worked here pretty much ever since.

"Well, I've been here all of my life," she says. "It was open before I was even born, so I was like a booth baby."

Both of her parents are now deceased, as is her sister, Diane McDannel, so Norris now runs Davenport's with the help of her niece, Amanda Thames, who is Diane McDannel's daughter and the Hollises' granddaughter.

"My grandmother would take me in here while she did her work sometimes," Thames remembers. "So I kind of grew up here, too."

Norris is entrusted with preparing the pizza sauce and the house-made Italian and French dressings -- family recipes that are such a closely guarded secret that she comes in early every morning to prepare them before the rest of the staff arrives.

"I come in here and do my thing, and nobody's allowed in - except for Amanda, of course," Norris says.

And without giving away any trade secrets, just what is it that makes Davenport's sauce so special?

"The only way I can describe it is just what people tell me - that they are addicted to it," Norris says. "They actually accuse us of putting drugs in our sauce. And I respond to them that I am just as addicted to it as they are."

When Rex and Ardyce Hollis opened Davenport's in 1964, it was just a couple of years after Rex's childhood buddy, Jim "Peanut" Davenport, had played third base for the San Francisco Giants in the 1962 World Series.

And since Davenport had a marketable name and Hollis didn't, Hollis asked his old friend if it would be OK if he called his place Jim Davenport's instead.

"He just asked him, 'Hey, can I use your name?'" Norris says. "And (Davenport) said, 'Sure.' . . . He would come by about once a year after baseball season was over."

The restaurant's name was recently shortened to Davenport's Pizza Palace -- dropping the "Jim" -- but photos of Davenport from his baseball days still cover the wall near the front entrance, and the Jim's Special (with beef, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions and green peppers) remains the most popular specialty pizza on the menu.

Davenport's goes so far back that national chains such as Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caesars and Papa John's had yet to come to town, and other local favorites such as New York Pizza in Homewood and Cosmo's Pizza on Southside were still a decade or more away from opening.

Back in those early days, the Hollises lived in an apartment on Brook Manor Drive, across the street from their pizzeria, and to drum up business, Rex Hollis went around the neighborhood handing out free slices.

"My grandad would go door-to-door and pass out pizza because at the time, pizza wasn't as popular a food item as it is today," Thames says. "It's hard to believe, but it was one of the first pizza places around here at the time."

Now, with a new pizza place opening every few months -- from national brands such as Pieology and Your Pie to local pizzerias such as Post Office Pies and Slice Pizza & Brew -- Davenport's Pizza Palace has not only survived, but thrived, in the face of all the new competition.

"We really haven't seen any dip at all since all of those places have opened," Thames says. "People still come in here. They may also try those, but they are going to come back to Davenport's for that traditional pizza."

Norris, who studied marketing at Auburn University, says the secret to Davenport's longevity is actually pretty simple.

"You do one thing and you do it well," she says. "All we have is pizza and salad, and that's it."

From the checkerboard tablecloths and frosty beer mugs to the vintage movie-star photos of John Wayne, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and dozens of others to the 1980s-era arcade games such as Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, Davenport's Pizza Palace appears to be stuck in a time that its customers don't want to forget, or let go of.

"We've made an effort not to change too much about it because people do want to come back to what they're used to and the way this has always looked," Thames says.

"If you stay in here for more than five minutes, you'll hear somebody talking about how, 'Oh, my parents had their first date here.' Or, 'Oh, I came here and now I'm bringing my kids here for birthday parties, just like I did.'

"That is another reason I think people keep coming back," she adds. "There aren't many places that are still here from your childhood where you can go back and have that nostalgia."

Davenport's Pizza Palace is at 2837 Cahaba Road in Mountain Brook. The phone number is 205-879-8603 and the website is davenportspizza.com. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 4:30 to 10 p.m. Sundays.

UPDATED at 5:14 p.m. CDT on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, to correct Jim Davenport's position with the San Francisco Giants.