To most people residing in Columbus or anyplace in central Ohio, thin-crust, square-cut pizza is simply pizza. The pies they grew up with don’t must be outlined or named, however for the sake of readability, let’s name it “Columbus-style.” It will not be as well-known as pizzas from Chicago, New York, and even New Haven, however the native model has a fierce and dependable following. It routinely beats different cities on nationwide high pizza lists, guests can eat their means by means of a citywide pizza path, and an extended and storied historical past offers the town bona fides simply as deep as its friends.
The native pizza is distinct in a number of methods. Columbus pizza-makers roll their dough out skinny and rating it with a curler docker, which creates small holes that stop the dough from effervescent within the oven. Most pies are dusted with cornmeal to maintain from sticking to stone deck ovens; in keeping with most pizza-makers within the metropolis, the ovens’ stone bottoms are very important to evenly distribute warmth, and the porous materials absorbs moisture, delivering a crisp crust. The dough is topped with a candy sauce and balanced by a provolone cheese combine that goes from edge to edge, together with, ideally, pepperoni. Pies arrive on the desk reduce into “squares,” although in actuality they’re usually nearer to rectangles.
These components mix right into a feel and look that’s immediately recognizable. However Columbus-style pizza isn’t simply widespread due to its construction; it’s additionally comparatively reasonably priced. A pie is roughly $20, in distinction to pies that may simply begin at $30 in cities like Los Angeles and New York. That makes Columbus pizza accessible to the town’s loyal scholar sports activities followers, who usually cheer on nationally ranked and domestically cherished groups just like the Ohio State College’s Buckeyes with sport day pizza gross sales. When the wildly widespread staff performs rival Michigan, it’s all palms on deck at pizzerias.
Pizza “is infused into the tradition of this metropolis,” says Jim Ellison, the creator of Columbus Pizza: A Slice of Historical past. “There’s three issues that you may count on folks can have a dialog with you about in Columbus: the climate, Ohio State — soccer specifically — and pizza.”
And the model is gaining traction past the town limits, popping up on menus throughout the Midwest. When you don’t know Columbus’s pizza already, you would possibly quickly.
Like so many American pizza kinds, Columbus-style pizza obtained its begin when Italian immigrants arrived within the area. Tat Ristorante Di Famiglia began the pattern in 1929, opening in a neighborhood as soon as known as Flytown for its proximity to the town’s airport (though Tat has jumped round a number of occasions throughout its almost 100-year run). The restaurant served pizza as a snack or appetizer, which was widespread on the time.
A couple of many years later, Jimmy Massey and Romeo Sirij opened Romeo’s, the primary correct pizzeria within the metropolis. Their inspiration was possible two-fold, says Ellison. Sirij was a wine salesman, and he could have seen how widespread pizza pies have been whereas making deliveries to Tat. In the meantime, Massey had been a baker in Chicago, the place tavern-style pizza, meticulously reduce into easy-to-eat rectangles, was turning into widespread. “I’ve obtained to assume that in some unspecified time in the future in time, he was at a bar in Chicago and he stated, ‘Hey, I sort of like this sq. reduce factor. It’s simpler to share,’” Ellison says. “They’re barely totally different kinds, however they’re undoubtedly in the identical household.”
Whereas Chicago developed a number of kinds of pizza, starting from the square-cut tavern-style that Massey encountered to the thick deep-dish pies that vacationers affiliate with the town, Columbus caught with skinny crust. In terms of deep dish or thicker crust, “I don’t know if folks actually go for that. It’s so filling, and it’s sort of wealthy,” says Tom Iannarino, the second-generation proprietor of Terita’s Pizzeria. What folks go for, at Terita’s a minimum of, are thin-crust pies made with a recipe that hasn’t modified a lot since Iannarino’s father opened the store in 1959.
Whether or not the slice is known as tavern reduce, occasion slice, or sq., the form is a crucial component of what makes a Columbus-style pizza, however the toppings are simply as essential.
Early pizzerias in Columbus largely obtained their cheese (usually provolone) and different toppings from DiPaolo Meals, an Italian grocery store-turned-food distributor (now run below the identify RDP). The longtime vendor did greater than promote items, although; it influenced and standardized how pizza was made within the area and supported fledgling companies. Richie DiPaolo began making and promoting cardboard bins to make pizzas simpler to move, and he labored with Vlasic to jar presliced peppers, a standard addition to pies.
The preferred topping, although, is pepperoni, particularly, the quantity thereof. Pizzerias satisfaction themselves on what number of slices they’ll match on every pie. Massey’s, which Jimmy opened a number of years after Romeo’s, boasts 155 pepperoni slices per giant pie, whereas Donatos, a domestically owned chain, matches 100. Outdated-world-style sausage casings, which curl within the warmth of the oven, trigger the pepperoni to shrink into good little cups of grease. Many native pizzerias’ menus notice the identify of their sausage supplier — Ezzo Sausage Co. — one other Columbus household enterprise.
At each degree, household companies drive Columbus-style pizza. At Terita’s, Iannarino has his son, who represents the enterprise’s third technology, run the pizzeria’s social media. At Minelli’s, Jeff Ferrelli inherited the store his dad opened in 1967, and Jeff’s twin daughters, Kaci and Kelli, joined the household enterprise after graduating from Ohio State. Massey’s, which has franchised and expanded to fifteen areas, continues to be a household enterprise, albeit run by a unique household after Jimmy Massey offered the corporate to his long-time worker, Guido Casa.
Jim Grote, the person behind Donatos, didn’t invent the crispy-crusted, edge-to-edge topping pizzas that Columbus loves, however he “definitely made it widespread, not simply right here, however elsewhere too,” says Bob Vitale, the eating reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. At this time, the chain has greater than 170 areas in 12 states.
The story of Donatos begins like many different pizzerias in Columbus. Grote purchased a pizzeria in 1963 with a mortgage from his household. His dad and mom made the sausages, his mother made the dough, and his children all labored within the retailer. At one level, the pizzeria sat proper in entrance of the household’s home, and prospects would wait for his or her pizzas within the household’s house.
However Grote had bigger ambitions. He was obsessive about consistency — he weighed every pie and regarded for instruments to assist create effectivity within the pizzeria. Donatos later shifted from conventional deck ovens to conveyor belt ovens for better consistency. Considered one of his early innovations, the Peppamatic, sliced pepperoni to a constant thickness and positioned the slices evenly throughout a pie, edge to edge.
Grote even obtained a copyright on the advertising and marketing phrase “edge to edge” and took Pizza Hut to courtroom in 1996 when it launched a marketing campaign for a pizza known as “the Edge.” Donatos received a $5 million settlement for copyright infringement. A couple of years later, Donatos had one other run-in with a significant fast-food chain. McDonald’s purchased the chain in a bid to carry pizza to the plenty. The association didn’t work out fairly as deliberate for both occasion, and the Grotes purchased Donatos again in 2003. However ultimately Grote discovered a suitable company accomplice, Pink Robin, which serves Donatos pizza in additional than 260 areas, serving to Columbus-style pizza attain a bigger viewers. Donatos even not too long ago partnered with restaurant robotics firm Appetronix to open a totally automated pizza restaurant at John Glenn Columbus Worldwide Airport.
Ellison likens Donatos to the Bud Gentle of Columbus-style pizza. That’s not an insult. Any brewer is aware of “how exhausting it’s to have a beer constantly come out precisely the identical means each single time,” Ellison says. Identical with pizza.
Whereas Donatos is flourishing, Ellison worries that the normal Columbus-style pizza is an “endangered species.” Most of the household pizzerias that opened within the ’50s and ’60s have shuttered areas or closed altogether. It’s powerful to maintain a household enterprise going after the second or third technology.
However pizzerias are nonetheless opening up throughout the town, and Columbus continues to be a pizza metropolis. It’s simply evolving. Vitale factors to new pizzerias that incorporate influences from world wide, echoing Columbus’s numerous inhabitants and rising culinary scene. There’s a paneer tikka masala pizza at Moon Pizza and a rooster shawarma pie at Auzy’s Pizza & Rooster. Their pies often is the ones feeding future generations of proud, Ohio State-cheering, Columbus-style pizza advocates.
