The restaurant is known for serving a classic New York street-style pizza and has been called a "Greenwich Village institution".

In the late 2010s, Joe's expanded internationally when three locations were opened in Shanghai, China, in Jing'an, Xuhui, and Changning.

In 2018, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells noted, “When neoclassical slice-shop owners say they emulate the old-school joints that still obsess over quality, Joe’s is one of the places they’re talking about.”[4] Joe has been described by Ed Levine as a “slice purist”, and the restaurant serves only pizza.

[7][8] Joe's appears in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series on Netflix, Marvel's Jessica Jones and Marvel's Iron Fist, In Jessica Jones Trish Walker orders a pizza from this location before going on the run, the pizzeria is also mentioned in Iron Fist, being the establishment from which Claire Temple orders a pizza as a way to socialize with Davos, who reluctantly tries it due to his veganism.

[9][10] In 2022, Joe's Pizza appeared in a commercial for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in the form of a food truck.