28 ms·

NYC Slice

670 points by mbil 4y ago

cactusplant7374 4y ago
Any learnings beyond the dollar value?
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Justsignedup 4y ago
fascinating. this site crashes firefox.
- mattmoose21 4y ago
  same here.
- jffry 4y ago
  I can't remember the last time I saw Firefox hard crash to desktop like this, instead of the individual content tab dying. Impressive!
- ksherlock 4y ago
  and MacOS Safari.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  I'm having no trouble with Firefox 108 on Fedora
- LegitShady 4y ago
  latest firefox running on windows 10. I have a bunch of addons and some of them block scripts. No crash.
- acdha 4y ago
  Do you have some kind of extension like an ad blocker? It’s fine in Firefox and Safari on a clean install so I’m wondering whether there might be some issues related to how large the page is or possibly a video driver problem.
  - MajimasEyepatch 4y ago
    It crashes for me on macOS. I have a couple of password manager extensions and React Developer Tools installed. I would not be surprised if it's LastPass. Edit: Interestingly, Chrome flashes a couple of times too when I scroll down to the section of the page with the Carto map plugin. I can see when I inspect the DOM that there's supposed to be an iframe there, but it looks Chrome is just killing the iframe rather than crashing to desktop. Safari hangs but does not crash when it gets to Carto. So something is screwy with that map plugin.
- usefulcat 4y ago
  Works fine here, FF 108.0.2 on MacOS 12.6.1, Apple silicon
yamtaddle 4y ago
> but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered This is true of the big national chains, too. They've kept prices relatively stable for damn near 25 years, at this point, but quality has gotten far worse over that same time span. That mouth-watering Pizza Hut pie you remember from 1992 isn't all nostalgia—every now and then I find single-location or small-chain joints that make pizza very similar to how I remember those tasting. Thing is, those are like $15+ a pie now, with a coupon or special. But you can still get larges for $8 or less (coupon or special, which are available 100% of the time) at the major chains—they're just not the same pizza you were getting in the 80s up to about the late 90s. [EDIT] In fact, the 2020-on inflation is the first time I've seen the big chains seriously give in on keeping price increases in check. They've gone up like 20% in the last couple years.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
  At the risk of sounding like an ad I’m kind of startled at how not-terrible Little Caesars is for the price. A lot of food and a completely reasonable tasting and baked pie for stupid cheap when compared to almost everything else.
  - alar44 4y ago
    Little Caesars is objectively terrible, sorry.
    - ttymck 4y ago
      The subjective nature of reality disagrees with you, sorry.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Seconded, cannot relate. They're worth the $6 or whatever but not a penny more. Better than most $6 frozen pizzas, I suppose. They have that going for them. They're also a good example of this, actually. They'd held their $5 price point for a long time but had gradually been cutting toppings until they were comically bare. Then they introduced a $6 "extra toppings" (or something, I don't recall the way they phrased it) pie that just had the same amount the normal ones used to. Post-Covid I'm pretty sure the sad-pie price is up to $6, and the actually-has-toppings edition is $7.
downer123 4y ago
Table 87 is a great slice.
- itisit 4y ago
  Agree, but sauce can be a bit too sweet.
googlryas 4y ago
Gotta get up to 101st and Broadway and try sal & Carmines. Little hole in the wall but was my favorite NYC slice despite no one ever talking about it.
- cccybernetic 4y ago
  Yeah, while not my favorite, Sal & Carmines is great. Only other truly great slice joint on the UWS is Freddie's (which is phenomenal). A new-ish place, Mama's Too on 106th, isn't too bad either.
  - nobody9999 4y ago
    Don't forget Koronet between 110 and 111. Jumbo slices FTW!
    - valarauko 4y ago
      There's also a Koronet on Lex between 77th & 78th - my goto whenever I'm in the area.
- ryanwaggoner 4y ago
  Yes!! I live a few blocks from there and it’s one of the best I’ve had in the city.
- Involution 4y ago
  Spent my adolescence going to S&C's nearly day of summer vacations. My closest childhood friend and I always grabbed two slices and sat at the table directly behind the column. Even though the original proprietors have passed on, the cheese slices are still world-class. The flavor of nostalgia probably enriches the sauce and cheese, but Sal and Camrine's remains the slept-on great slice in Manhattan.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Yeah unfortunately sal passed on maybe 7 years ago? But his grandson now operates it and was working under sal for quite a while before sal passed, and I didn't really notice a difference in the quality of a slice after the grandson took over. Unfortunately I moved to Colorado a few years ago and it's impossible to get even a mediocre slice here, let alone my favorite of all time
charlus 4y ago
I'm visiting NYC for the first time in May - first thing I researched was pizza, so really appreciate this work. Thank you.
- RandallBrown 4y ago
  What's great about pizza in New York is the spontaneity. After a night out there will always be somewhere nearby with a pretty good slice of pizza. The best pizza I had while living in New York isn't any better than the best pizza I've had in Seattle but the average slice was much better.
- wnolens 4y ago
  There's so so many places honestly. I could rhyme off a half dozen more on this list that some new yorker would say is "the best". But coming from out of town your expectations are probably sky high. If pizza is high on your list, go for gold. It's a fun thing to do in the city. Also you need to treat both categories separately - slice, and whole pie. different game.
morley 4y ago
Notably absent from this list is L'Industrie in Williamsburg!
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >Notably absent from this list is L'Industrie in Williamsburg! As an old guy, I try to avoid Hipster doofus land^W^W^W Williamsburg as much as possible. YMMV
  - hacker_newz 4y ago
    You're about a decade behind in neighborhood stereotypes there boomer.
    - nobody9999 4y ago
      I'm not a boomer, but fuck you very much for saying so. I say that not to be mean, but "boomer" has become a slur and I prefer not to be insulted unless it's actually accurate. I have been in Hipster doofus land[0] in the past few years and most of what I experienced reinforced my stance. I will continue to try to avoid it. [0] I'd love to say I made that nickname up, but I didn't. Works for me though. Edit: Touched on the source of a wonderful moniker.
      - elteto 4y ago
        You complain about being called boomer while simultaneously reducing an entire neighborhood to "hipster doofus land". That's some real boomer stuff.
        nobody9999 4y ago
        One is an objective thing (boomers are those born between 1945 and 1962) and the other is subjective (Williamsburg, Billyburg, Hipster Doofus Land) labeling. The first isn't the case (I was born after 1962) and the second is a matter of opinion.[0] But please. Do continue to pile on. I don't want to take away one of your few pleasures in life. Toodles! [0] Here's another one for you: If you can't put New York, NY after your address, you don't live in New York.[1] Have at that one too, friend. [1] As a NYC native, I note that I've lived in every borough except Stagnant Island (for obvious reasons) over the past 50+ years. As such (no Dunning-Kruger[2] effect necessary, can you make such a statement?), I am entitled to make such pronouncements. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
paxys 4y ago
> This calculation excludes dollar slices. So, they only counted data from places where the price has gone up and concluded that...the price has gone up.
- pastor_bob 4y ago
  Dollar slice is a dollar for a reason. Barely any cheese or sauce.
- none_to_remain 4y ago
  A dollar slice and a regular slice are related things but definitely different categories
- czinck 4y ago
  Dollar slices aren't just a slice of pizza for a dollar, they're a different business model focusing on just sheer volume. Joe's has at least 3 employees (cashier, guy taking your order and reheating the slice, and guy making the pizzas), plus prep people in the back, and 4+ different pies, and 20+ seats. The dollar place I go to has 2 guys, they don't reheat it, any toppings are just added onto your slice not actually cooked into the pie, no seats. I'm ignoring differences in quality/quantity of ingredients because I've had some great dollar slices, but also some abysmal ones. That said, a lot of dollar slices are now $1.50.
- freejazz 4y ago
  Dollar slices aren't actual pizza, it's a pizza-like product
rcme 4y ago
Many who grow up in the NY area grow up on pizza. In childhood, it's often eaten as a quick meal that doesn't require cooking. In adolescence, pizza is one of the only foods you can afford to eat out with your friends after school. In college, there's nothing like a drunken slice of pizza at 1 am. It's hard to overstate what a satisfying comfort food pizza is. There's truly nothing like it.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  I, personally, occasionally miss choking on the super stringy cheese of bowling alley pizza of elementary school era birthday parties. Do not miss drunken pizza of college as much.. Now it's just mostly costco frozen 5-pack
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  That’s not just NY. I suspect it’s basically all of the US.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    The Ninja Turtles got this picky-eater-as-a-child fella to give it a fair shake. Was my undisputed favorite type of food for like 15 years straight (when I started trying more things and discovered Middle Eastern and Indian food). And that's out in a part of the country with mostly-bad pizza options. Nothing half as good as a so-so NY slice, certainly.
  - cammikebrown 4y ago
    Nowhere in the US is a slice as consistently affordable and ubiquitous as NYC.
  - o_____________o 4y ago
    It's different in NY due to the ubiquity, downward pressure on price, and all-hour coverage. You can be nearly anywhere, at any time, and be fed in minutes. You often eat while standing and remaining social. The experience anchors itself in your mind as an instant, omnipresent solution to hunger. There's also probably something to the infinitely nuanced territorial aspect of which slice is better (the answer is Prince Street).
eugenekolo 4y ago
Anecdotally, I've felt the same way. Didn't properly record it.. but, slices these days in NYC (and outside) are definitely lacking in sauce lately. Some places even feel like they're cutting on salt and oil too. I will add that the quality also highly depends on when you go. Generally, the busier it is, the worse the quality. The author states that Joe's is one of the better ones, but I think the quality has gone down too. I was there in 2014, 2017, and 2022. Digging up my photos to review the sauce amounts, but I felt 2022 was very lackluster to previous memories.
enjo 4y ago
I can't turn up my spreadsheet just this second but I did something similar when I worked in Manhattan. I did 54 slices. My big takeway was that I really don't like Joes and that I will die on the hill that Pizzeria Suprema, despite being touristy , is the best slice that I've had in Manhattan.
tz18 4y ago
Pizza is 3USD a slice in NY?!??!?!?
- valarauko 4y ago
  Yup, that's pretty par for the course at most places that sell by the slice. Dollar slice places now mostly charge $1.25-$1.50 for a plain cheese slice.
- ProAm 4y ago
  Are you saying that is expensive or inexpensive? Avg's to 18 bucks a pie, which for cheese seems about right for NYC
  - skipkey 4y ago
    Seems ridiculously cheap to me. here in Phoenix, there are 2 restaurants near me that do by the slice, both around $5. Most restaurants don’t offer it. I have only spent a month or so in NYC working a decade back, and at the time every thing was more expensive than home except pizza. I think every region probably has its cheap food for the working class. Here it’s tacos, there it was cheap slices.
    - ProAm 4y ago
      How big are the slices near you? Im assuming large-ish like a NYC slice, where 6 slices will make the pie. If you are paying $5.00 for a slice of cheese pizza in Phoenix, that means a whole cheese pizza would cost $30 USD? That is insanity. Granted I think it would be cheaper if you bought a whole pie, but for dough, cheese and sauce that is still a very healthy profit. I agree every region has its own good cheap food. Interesting stuff.
- wnolens 4y ago
  on the cheap side (for a decent one). You can get 2.50-2.75 in some spots. And of course there's a the $1 slice (for a quality sacrifice)
chubot 4y ago
I lived in Manhattan for the last year, and lived within train distance as a child, and it's pretty striking how much changing economics affect what you can get. Notice that all the slices are plain CHEESE or some variant of it (you can get it with no sauce, or no cheese too!) I can't get a mushroom or veggie slice anymore at so many places? Feels like a recipe for malnutrition and weight gain.
ptaffs 4y ago
Blogger and now author about the experience did something similar, reviewing pizza slices in NY, 2009-2011 http://www.sliceharvester.com/ http://www.sliceharvester.com/ https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Slice-Harvester/Colin-Atrophy-Hagendorf/9781476705897 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Slice-Harvester/Colin...
- wefarrell 4y ago
  I found my favorite pizza places through him, I really liked his taste. Unfortunately a lot of the places on that list have either closed down or changed.
babypuncher 4y ago
I find the perceived sensitivity to food pricing, especially in high income areas like NYC, interesting. The author points out that in 8 years, the average cost of a slice of pizza has hardly moved, but the amount of sauce on them has been reduced as a cost cutting measure. Would a pizza place really see reduced traffic if they kept the same recipe and raised their price another $0.55 to compensate for inflation?
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I stopped eating out almost entirely because throughout the 2010s, I feel like the probability of receiving an acceptable quality meal kept declining. I would much rather pay $25 (or more) per meal that is good 99% of the time than pay $15 for a meal that is good 80% or 60% or 40% of the time. Obviously, I am sure restaurant operators know their business, and maybe it just is not economical for prepared food to be good 99% of the time at a price that sufficient sales can be made.
- pandama 4y ago
  High income but also high competition.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    I get that it's high competition, but once the price difference between two slices of pizza is a few coins it stops being a deciding factor for me.
dr_ 4y ago
If you ever get a chance, try to grab a pie from Chrissy’s Pizza (no store, made in a home oven in BK, have to follow on insta for when pies can be ordered). For slices, NY Suprema good as well And some of the best slices can be found across the river in NJ - just travel up Bloomfield Avenue into the Caldwells and there are great slice shops all over.
dkdbejwi383 4y ago
Curious how the dollar slices added up to a non-whole dollar amount. The name would imply that a dollar slice is $1. Is $.99 also considered a dollar slice?
- cammikebrown 4y ago
  Only with last year’s inflation did dollar slices become more expensive. They were $1 for a long, long time.
  - staringback 4y ago
    Still $1 if you know where to go
- jb1991 4y ago
  Most prices in the states are a nice round number minus one.
- deleted 4y ago
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- trynewideas 4y ago
  Only three of the 464 slices actually cost $1: Rony's Fresh Pizza, Sep 15th 2022, 6:23:16 pm Papa John's Pizza, Jun 14th 2021, 1:22:59 pm Pizza Market, May 21st 2021, 6:00:57 pm
- deleted 4y ago
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cammikebrown 4y ago
Looks like the correlation between the cost of a slice and a subway fare has decoupled. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Principle
hardwaregeek 4y ago
This is a fascinating list. No Mama's Too, no Prince St, no L'Industrie, no F&F. All of which are probably my top 4 for slices. Scarr's is there though, which rounds out my top 5. I don't eat a lot of pizza personally but I do love a good slice. What I love about New York isn't necessarily that we have the best pizza (although we do have places that are in the running for the best), but that the average quality is so damn high. You don't get a lot of overly doughy, bad cheese, bad sauce BS unless you frequent dollar slice shops.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  Prince is on there! It's a remarkable slice but the lines are frequently insane. L'Industrie is damn good. Highly recommend Action Bronson's Fuck That's Delicious episode there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOQUUyCRtiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOQUUyCRtiE
  - kepoly 4y ago
    Chefs night out on munchies just did a good episode with them too https://youtu.be/boqYh-mrVW0 https://youtu.be/boqYh-mrVW0
- valarauko 4y ago
  > You don't get a lot of overly doughy, bad cheese, bad sauce BS unless you frequent dollar slice shops. I've eaten at plenty of dollar slice places and honestly find them adequate for the price. I think I've only ever had one terrible slice, ever - and it wasn't a dollar slice place. I was unsurprised when the place closed shortly after.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    When you're drunk and just want something quick, hard to beat.
    - valarauko 4y ago
      As someone who lives in the outer edge of an Outer Borough, my experience is somewhat different - most slice places close fairly early (10 pm on average in my area, slightly later on weekends) and long before bars do. As a consequence, my go-to when out and about is a chopped cheese from the local deli/bodega.
logicallee 4y ago
For anyone who hasn't been to New York this is what a slice looked like at my local pizza place down the street: https://imgur.com/a/9wRM859 https://imgur.com/a/9wRM859 Delicious.
- wefarrell 4y ago
  That's not really a typical NYC slice to be honest. The crust looks nonexistent, the dough is thicker and it doesn't look as cheesy.
  - logicallee 4y ago
    True but it was delicious.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  I'd take a veggie one but damn that looks good.
- freejazz 4y ago
  That looks like shit pizza. It's a freaking loaf of bread. The dough isn't supposed to bake like that...
sebastian_z 4y ago
I have nice memories of Koronet. When studying late at night you could get a jumbo slice that substituted for a whole meal.
skrebbel 4y ago
I love how even in a city like NYC, there's a restaurant called "Pizza Italia". I mean it doesn't get more small-towny than that does it?
AlbertCory 4y ago
Nowhere on that page do I see "inflation-adjusted" price. That could be overall inflation, which would cover rent, wages, utilities, taxes, etc. The prices of tomatoes, flour, mozzarella, etc. would be even more relevant.
DevX101 4y ago
A fun project could be to quantify how much less pepperoni toppings, NY pizzerias have been putting on pizza. Train a CV model to detect what a slice is, what a pepperoni topping is. Then feed it public pictures of NY pizza over the past 10 years. An interesting result would be something like "NY pizzerias have been putting 16% less pepperoni on pizza". This would totally get news traffic and generate some buzz, and be a practical example of non-price inflation.
- jablongo 4y ago
  shrinkflation
tomcam 4y ago
> I did not rate the slices to avoid controversy and bribes. Whew
greenhearth 4y ago
Artichoke is gross. How do people like it, I will never understand.
- deleted 4y ago
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- airstrike 4y ago
  It's open super late and when you're drunk after going to a nearby club at 2:30am it hits the spot like few other slices do
- yunwal 4y ago
  It’s pricy drunk and high food. I would never seek it out sober but they disperse oil throughout the slice in a way that’s really satisfying if you’re under the influence.
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billiam 4y ago
Native New Yorker here. Out of towners are obsessed with the BEST slice, but the true measure of NYC's 45 degree greatness is the decent quality following a Poisson distribution. My tip: just travel to any random spot in the five boroughs. First; you will be impressed how close you are to a pizza spot wherever you are. Second: you will be impressed with the slice, and with the variety of people who are good at making it.
- deleted 4y ago
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- LarryMullins 4y ago
  Like out-of-towners asking which cheese steak shop in Philly is the best. The best is whichever corner shop is closest to you. If you're local and eat cheese steaks often, you don't drive all the way across the city to get such a lunch. You walk one or two blocks whichever shop you're near. But visitors want to experience the best, not experience it as a local would.
  - audiodude 4y ago
    Ditto burritos in SF!
    - colordrops 4y ago
      San Diego as well...
  - bluedays 4y ago
    There’s definitely the best, and when I was local I would definitely go out of my way for a good cheesesteak. Just not every time.
  - Larrikin 4y ago
    Random cheesesteaks in Philly are far better than random cheesesteaks in any other city, but I would never recommend a tourist to go to a random spot over one of the highly rated places. You'll just feel it was good but over hyped. It's a waste of time for someone who is there temporarily and doesn't live in the city. If you go to a place like Joe's you'll understand why the food became famous in the first place and how much better cheesesteaks are in Philly.
tptacek 4y ago
I'm not a New Yorker, but a New York food person I follow has a small rant about how people obsess about the best NYC slice, but that the real point of NYC pizza is that it's available everywhere in the city, like that you are never far from a good NYC slice --- so that the idea of seeking out particular slices kind of misses the point. NYC'ers: how bad is that take? (None of this is to say that it's illegitimate for New Yorkers to have opinions about whether the NYC slices they happen to be near, or were near before, are better than the others --- in the same sense as there are Italian Beef rivalries in Chicago.)
- bcobb 4y ago
  This is 100% correct.
- EduardLev 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad take, but I would disagree. It’s kind of like any sports debate where you argue about who is the best or greatest of all time. You’re splitting hairs, but it’s still a fun debate. Also even at the level of your local places, after eating the amount of pizza you do in New York you can tell small differences in quality such that you will seek out specific places in a certain radius.
- cainxinth 4y ago
  > ...the real point of NYC pizza is that it's available everywhere in the city I have fam on the Upper East Side and it's not an area with a lot of pizzerias (and definitely not many slice joints). There is a ton of great pizza in the city (and the surrounding Jersey burbs), but you do have to travel a bit for it sometimes even if you live in the city.
- mzg 4y ago
  Honestly, a solid take! It’s more of an optimization problem — find the best balance of quality, proximity, and price, and you’ve got your favorite slice shop. If you’re at a friend’s or a loved one’s, that solution changes, and you begin to associate the flavor of that slice with them and their home. Sometimes it’s worth it to make a trip out to one of the pizza Meccas—Lucali, Joe’s on Carmine, L&B Spumoni Gardens, etc.—but more often than not, you’re set with your local slice. Unless you live in Downtown Brooklyn, where there is no good pizza. Then you’re just fucked.
barbazoo 4y ago
That one slice in Boston though
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djcannabiz 4y ago
The CSV is here if anyone wants to take a look https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kwc7V/4/dataset.csv https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kwc7V/4/dataset.csv
_elkue 4y ago
Hello, I am the maker of the website. I'm sorry to hear it's crashing some browsers, I'll try to figure out what's happening. It's a clean install of wordpress so I'm confused what I did wrong. The reason there is an odd amount for dollar slice total is that one place had the nerve to charge me tax ($1.09). I concede that the quality at Joes has gone down over the years. I am closely noting the recommendations in this thread, and I am very relieved to no longer have to eat bad pizza just to add it to the map.
- ipnon 4y ago
  I am glad to see you like Sunnyside Pizza too. I have had dreams about that place.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  Do you call it a "plain slice" for everyone else? Everyone I know in NYC calls it a "regular slice".
  - astrojams 4y ago
    I grew up in NY and lived in NYC and I still call it a plain slice.
  - _elkue 4y ago
    I've always called it a plain slice but I've heard regular/cheese/plain used interchangeably
  - jagthebeetle 4y ago
    I'm from NYC and call it "plain" or "cheese." "Regular" makes me think too hard as to whether the "New York thing" is to say "regular" or "plain." It's also a lot of syllables. A similar phenomenon occurs with waiting "in [a/the] line" vs "on [a/the] line." I think I say either, but I'm "supposed to" say "on line."
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    when you order, it's called "a slice".
terran57 4y ago
Been living in New York for the past 20+ years. Sadly, inflation has diminished the quality and quantity of the average corner pizza shop's slice. Yes, the Artichoke Basil slice the author refers to is much more expensive, but it's also bigger than the average slice of pizza in NYC - and the quality of ingredients seems better. The $1 slice shops (now more like the $1.50 slice shops) live on low margin and high volume. I can attest that it's great when you're in a hurry and just want to get something in your system. For quality pizza slices, well, you're just going to have to pay $3-$5 for a slice nowadays ($1 or more for toppings).
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  artichoke dough is way too thick. probably adds to the cost for no good reason, maybe because it's easier to bake consistently...
- rngname22 4y ago
  Yeah an Artichoke artichoke slice costs like $7 I think in Park Slope rn but it's a lot more filling than the $5.50 white slice I got last night from a mom and pop shop a block away.
- yunwal 4y ago
  Artichoke pizza is serviceable drunk food, but really not very good outside of that context.
scoofy 4y ago
I used to live above Best Pizza (Williamsburg) and lived there when they opened. In my opinion, the best heuristic for good pizza is just the quality of tomatoes they use. San Marzano or Roma for the east coast, but on the west coast you have a ton of local options. I'm not saying you can't have good pizza from processed tomato sauce, I'm just saying that a place that cares about the quality of tomatoes also cares about the quality of their pizza. A lot of quick order places will just have the cans visible. A great way to experiment with pizza is to just experiment with local tomatoes. I never wanted to become a pizza snob, but living on top of one of the most quality pizza joints in town and knowing the guys there and their favorite spots... well... now i am. Here's a basic recipe from Frank. Anyone can make extremely high quality pizza at home by following his advice: https://youtu.be/whnvQBhXh3A https://youtu.be/whnvQBhXh3A The funniest thing that happened there was probably when this interested guy was asking 'the locals' how we liked it, and what was popular... we found out a week later that he was very probably this NYT food reviewer: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/reviews/09under.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/reviews/09under.ht...
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  the other nyc frank has good pizza advice on his instagram sometimes, on youtube anyway you can see his limone at least https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPVwdEmkco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPVwdEmkco i also lived around the corner from best pizza from their first year and frequented there. (though my true love was saltie.) sometimes frank experimented with the dough/bake method and asked what i thought, friendly people. i love their sicilian. rip bill
  - scoofy 4y ago
    >rip bill Uff... yea. I think Bill and I might have been the two biggest bike nerds in the neighborhood. I always wanted to join him on RAGBRAI. Sadly, I waited too long.
- areyousure 4y ago
  Why can't you buy the same canned San Marzano tomatoes anywhere?
g42gregory 4y ago
It looks like the price of pizza has been steadily increasing while the quality going (somewhat?) down. I believe this fits the definition of inflation. Do you remember a year (longer?) ago, all major news sources were telling us that the inflation was only temporary? I wonder why nobody put together a web service that “gives us our memory back”, so that we could make better assessment of various news sources going forward and make better decisions as a result?
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  I have etched into my brain the one where our president showed his seeming contempt for his countrymen by insinuating that we could believe such a boldface lie about inflation. “Talk of inflation,... the overwhelming consensus is that it’s going to pop up a little bit then go back down.” https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1485791682532675590?s=20 https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1485791682532675590?s... Edit: also, there are quite a few Twitter accounts that focus on content like this, though I wouldn't recommend spending much time on it.
itissid 4y ago
Guys, The best pizza in NY is in NJ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/dining/razza-pizza-review-jersey-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/dining/razza-pizza-review... Dunno why it is not included in this list..
- null_shift 4y ago
  The best pizza in NY is in New Haven.
- yunwal 4y ago
  Never been to Razza, but Bread and Salt in Hoboken was among the best slices I’ve had
Grazester 4y ago
There was a Papa John's in Bay Ridge that sold $1 slices in 2009. It was just a cheese slice but I enjoyed it. I do not enjoy Costco pizza and I enjoy more pizzas than I probably should.
- _elkue 4y ago
  I did include a dollar slice from Papa Johns in Brooklyn. It was not good, and I'm not sure if it's even still offered
- mbStavola 4y ago
  Speaking of Bay Ridge pizzerias circa 2009, there was a place on the corner of Bay Ridge Ave and Colonial called Lil Nino's (?) which served the absolute worst slices I've ever had. They essentially just plated up what was obviously frozen, microwave pizza. Their whole game plan seemed to be to appeal to the high school students in the area based on their location and the fact that they had a couple of Xbox 360s and TVs you could use. It was cool at first, but most of us just went back to picking up a couple of slices at Rocky and Nicky's across the street and going home to play Modern Warfare. I'm not sure they lasted more than six months to be honest.
- e40 4y ago
  Costco pizza is pretty terrible.
wallstprog 4y ago
There's not much that Staten Island has to brag about, but pizza is one of those things, and SI is very much under-represented here.
- _elkue 4y ago
  You're completely right. I wish I had visited more SI spots, some of my favorite pizza of all time has been on SI
wahnfrieden 4y ago
is the new lucali slice any good?
- yunwal 4y ago
  Great but still not worth the hype
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    oh i've been frequenting lucali for ages and it is worth the trouble for me, especially the calzone. i'm nearby and it's not hard to time it or chill at a cafe or bar. not many good no corkage byob places of that caliber either.
    - wnolens 4y ago
      gah i'm so far it would require a day off work spent entirely to get it. i'm still doing it someday though.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        when i was still selling my time to employers i would just wfh and camp out at a nearby cafe latter part of the day with view of the line
neilv 4y ago
The best slice in the Boston area ("the city that always sleeps") was the one you could get at 2am. It had a loose connection to HN-style hackers. Hi-Fi Pizza and Subs was a rare place that would serve the Central Square clubgoers around last call, as well as the people walking home in the cold from a late night at MIT. There'd be a welcoming warm light from the somewhat gritty street, and a fast moving line. You'd get to the front of the line, say something like "slice of mushroom, please", they'd always say "2.10, please", you pay and take it, and step to the side, to quickly shake the container of grated parmesan. Then you walk the rest of the way home (or back to the lab), munching the slice, soul recharged by warm tasty cheese and crust. (Sadly, Hi-Fi closed years ago. https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/cambridge-chronicle-tab/2014/03/11/hi-fi-pizza-closes-after/38288505007/ https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/cambridge-chronicle-tab/20... I was very cross when it was quickly replaced by a vegetarian food startup, and I'm vegetarian. A couple weeks ago, the even more MIT-beloved food place, Mary Chung (which I first heard of as a kid, in stories of MIT hackers), also shut down. https://www.boston.com/community/restaurants/mary-chung-restaurant-will-permanently-close-at-the-end-of-2022/ https://www.boston.com/community/restaurants/mary-chung-rest... )
- sometalk 4y ago
  Man, I loved Hi-Fi. Don't get me wrong, I love Clover, but Hi-Fi was special. Their mozzarella sticks used to have south asian spices sprinkled, and to me it was the the best of the east and the west. So many late nights were thawed by that place. FWIW, I think Mary Chung wanted to retire and be done with it.
  - neilv 4y ago
    One time, I was picking up rare takeout at Mary Chung, and I somewhat excitedly asked the older woman at the register, "Are you Mary Chung?" She smiled and said, "Yes, we are." :)
- tamade 4y ago
  Best slice is Noch's in harvard sq
- 4y ago
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
I agree with most of the comments in the thread about NYC, but would like to point out that there are some really great old school pizza places in Nassau County (Long Island, just east of NYC) that rival any NYC pizza place.
sacnoradhq 4y ago
Cheese is the most expensive ingredient, and labor the most expensive cost of delivery. Do NYC "dollar" slices skimp on cheese in quantity and/or quality?
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  On everything.
skizm 4y ago
Maybe unpopular opinion: NJ has better pizza on average, although you can find better pizza in NYC if you're looking for something specific. Just my opinion obviously.
- 535188B17C93743 4y ago
  this seems like a relatively popular opinion around new york to people who actually live in the city.
- shostack 4y ago
  Chicagoan here. It's cute to watch y'all compare that thing you refer to as pizza.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    Not a native Chicagoan here, but lived in the area for quite a while. Chicago has not one but three distinct styles of pizza, the deep-dish which many think of as "Chicago style", the thin-crust with a relatively thin (compared to deep-dish, anyway) layer of sauce, cheese, and meats, and the square-cut tavern style. All three are superior to anything the East Coast has to offer, IMO.
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      But are not, when you get right down to it, pizza at all.
      - sbaiddn 4y ago
        If you ask an Italian, neither is NYC's
        moloch-hai 4y ago
        It is anyway possible to find pizza in NYC. If rare. There is distressingly much Chicago whatever it is, besides. The best pizza I ever had was off a cart in Perugia, Umbria, in the '90s. It had potato slices, parmesan spears, green olive oil, and crunchy salt. You may doubt, but it was very much pizza. The crust makes the pizza.
probablynish 4y ago
Reading Zvi's taxonomy of pizzas ( https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/restaurant-guide-2-pizza/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/restaurant-guide-2-p... ) was when I realized that NY style pizza is the type I love. Bookmarking this list to go through on a future trip to NYC!
- pzone 4y ago
  This list is a bit idiosyncratic like one guy’s personal tastes. A lot of far away inconvenient locations. Personally I would suggest going to the fan favorites like scarr’s and L’Industrie instead. Bleecker Street is in the intersection of these strategies
  - probablynish 4y ago
    Thanks for the tip. I probably should start with the fan favorites. I'll check those out when I'm next in new york!
geephroh 4y ago
This represents what social media should really be about. I salute you, Liam.
deleted 4y ago
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msoad 4y ago
The obsession with "best NYC pizza" is funny to New Yorkers. Pizza is usually not a food that you plan for it and go somewhere far to have it. The best pizza is the one nearby. They're all good. Just enjoy it and stop with the FOMO
moloch-hai 4y ago
I have found that I need to pay $5 for a good slice, nowadays. Most pizza even in NYC is not good, by my standards. I.e., I can do better than those at home.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Per pizza ($40US) that is getting on for a high-end five-star main meal where I live.
bluedino 4y ago
Since the pandemic, large pizzas have all gone up to $11 from the chains, so I have just started buying $4/5 frozen pizzas (coupon or on sale), or the $6 take home and bake pizza from the grocery store deli.
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
Bleecker Street Pizza has the best pizza in NYC.
hot_gril 4y ago
Excludes the dollar slices, but oddly enough I prefer those over the more expensive ones. I think it's cause they're less oily. Do they have fake cheese or something?
standardUser 4y ago
It's difficult to notice inflation living in NYC because everything is just expensive. If a coffee or a slice of pizza or a bagel goes up by 20%, that's less than a buck on average, and prices among those products already vary by a lot more than buck. So it's never going to be a shocking increase. Or even noticeable. Combine that with the resignation that most New Yorkers have to the fact that shit is just expensive, and it's hard to really feel an impact from all this inflation that the media has been blaring about for a year. Am I spending slightly more day-to-day than I did a year or two ago? Probably, but I'd be hard-pressed to prove it. I guess it's more obvious if you make a chart!
- nxm 4y ago
  Also a function of your salary… you don’t feel that marginal increase, but many non-tech sector folks living on a budget definitely do
  - standardUser 4y ago
    I am just always broke. But yes, families are likely purchasing many of the same items at the same locations each week and can both see and feel the difference. But the vast majority of people I know in NY are single or childless and they seem, like me, to consider their paycheck forfeit to the city and it's infinite offerings.
m0llusk 4y ago
This thread is making me hungry.
dsubburam 4y ago
No luck if you're vegan looking for a slice? (Searched all comments for "vegan").
weird-eye-issue 4y ago
I think this whole thing would have been a lot better/more useful if they rated them
acalzycalzy 4y ago
Some guy did this way before him
hparadiz 4y ago
Everyone is obsessed with NYC but these types of slices can be found in all the major east coast cities and is definitely one thing I miss about Philly. I'm in LA now and you'd think with how many Italians there are around here there'd be a higher standard but nope.
- hnick 4y ago
  Well, and I can't personally confirm this, they say NYC water is somehow better for making the dough in this style of pizza.
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    Well, NYC got the best water quality :)
  - hparadiz 4y ago
    That's a myth. There's a pretty good NYC style pizza place in Maui and it tastes exactly the same.
- yunwal 4y ago
  Philly and New Haven are basically the only 2 other cities that have solid “pizza cultures”. If you go to Baltimore, DC, or Boston you can’t get anything close to an NY slice without traveling significantly out of your way. Even then, the ubiquity of the NYC slice shop can’t be matched
  - hparadiz 4y ago
    You'd be surprised. My absolute favorite pizza in the entire world is from a small family owned pizza place in the suburbs of Philly. This spot. https://g.co/kgs/MYr2E9 https://g.co/kgs/MYr2E9 In Philly my favorite is https://g.co/kgs/1RkGda https://g.co/kgs/1RkGda Also the Jersey shore has a ton of spots.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      Yeah an important clarification is New York is really only dominant in slice shops. Great restaurant pizza exists almost everywhere now. I’ll have to check out your Philly recs.
graycat 4y ago
Pizza costs? Two old posts on topic and possibly of value, one pizza for one for about $1 per pizza: Pizza is one of my standard food items, and I explained how I make pizza in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34081087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34081087 with some more details in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085805 Those two, old posts might be of some value for people interested in pizza. For costs, I estimate the cost of ingredients for my pizza for one person at about $1 per pizza, that is, a lot less than single slices in NYC.
anonu 4y ago
I wonder if there's a $1 slice anywhere in NYC. Might be really small
- bcohen123 4y ago
  There are dozens, all over the city!
- shaunsingh 4y ago
  Not sure if I'm missing anything in your comment, but the study purposely excludes dollar slices. You can find a lot of 1$ slices in nyc, and they usually taste pretty good!
- elijaht 4y ago
  It’s incredibly easy to find a dollar slice in NYC
- wnolens 4y ago
  There are many, it's practically it's own category of slice. There's definitely a quality hit, but still a great value. And they churn through them so much that you're quite likely to get one fresh out of the oven - which in my opinion beats a better slice that's been sitting there for a few hours. The $1 slice nearest chelsea flea market is the best I've had.
KingLancelot 4y ago
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brailsafe 4y ago
That's a lot of pepperoni over only 9 years. Have never visited New York, but I'm sure the pizza is fine enough. But is it as good as a any neopolitan pizza you can get in any PNW city? Anyone? Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland have pretty good, though expensive pizza.
- staticfish 4y ago
  Sorry, I live in Seattle and it's not even on the same league as even the worst East Coast Pizza.
abruzzi 4y ago
I actually prefer my pizza with less sauce, or preferably white pizza (I know, sacrilege) either the garlic butter variant or the ricotta variant. I've never had pizza in NYC, but favorites have always been Rizzo's and Roman Delight in the northern Philly suburbs. Both great places that I've eaten at hundreds of times. I'm sure NYC has good pizza, but Philadelphia is no slouch.
ronty88 4y ago
Not all heroes wear capes. This made my day.
- wnolens 4y ago
  Yes, as a NYC resident I love a good convo about pizza. This thread made me very happy to see everyone appreciating pizza
qvarting 4y ago
Similar account for kebab in Sweden https://www.instagram.com/kebabogram/ https://www.instagram.com/kebabogram/ Waiting for the stats from there as well :)
koliber 4y ago
Why are dollar slices excluded? I can make a couple of guesses, but would love to hear the author's reason(s).
napolux 4y ago
Same quality decline is happening in Italy. We're seeing also a polarization, at least in the north, where I live. On one side "very bad pizza, low/avg price", on the other side "very good pizza, higher prices". All the middle, average pizza places with reasonable prices are going out of business or moving to the the bad side.
neycoda 4y ago
"The biggest thing I have noticed is the decline in the amount of sauce put on slices. I’m sure this is a cost-saving measure, but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered." Yes, that's generally what happens with a _stupid_ "cost-saving measure", whicb our culture defends to the hilt for some reason. There's ways to cut costs without compromising quality, called a _smart_ cost-saving measure, but our culture isn't about quality anymore, is it? It's all about saving/making money, but money doesn't taste very good, does it? I'd rather spend a little more for a quality piece of pizza than save money eating something that tastes more like cardboard than before.
johnjungles 4y ago
It’s the water lol
talos 4y ago
RIP http://www.sliceharvester.com/ http://www.sliceharvester.com/
deleted 4y ago
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quirk 4y ago
Mario's on Dekalb is truly great, glad to see it made his list of the best. Three Luigi's on Grand is even better though!
MisterTea 4y ago
Native from Ozone Park, still living here. I'm excited but not surprised to see Ozone Pizza AND New Park on that list. This neighborhood along with Howard Beach to the south was mostly Italian immigrants and their descendants so good Italian food was/is a staple. Of course it was full of mobsters and is the Goodfellas neighborhood; parts were even filmed around here for authenticity, check out Nier's Tavern. Into the late 90's and early 00's you could still walk into a local joint like Ozone or Romeo's and sometimes in the corner would be a table of well dressed older gentlemen speaking Italian. And no one sat near them because you knew not to. New Park is a local landmark and its been around for decades, my father ate there as a kid. They have this unique old school slice with lightly sweet sauce and the bottom is salted giving a wonderful balance of flavor to the ingredients. They don't make frilly slices so no buffalo or vegetable slices, just standard toppings. It's big with JFK workers and cops so the place is busy and volume is high and they tend to under-cook the pizzas so ask for it well done. And even if its under cooked and slightly doughy its still damn good. Ozone Pizza is not only good but cheap. I can order a pie, usually half mushroom/eggplant and half pepperoni, with an order of garlic twists that comes with this amazing marinara sauce for $23 and change. Delivered. Domino's cant compete in price or quality. They also have a really good buffalo slice based on a white slice. Before I stopped eating a little too rich I used to walk over and grab a buffalo slice and a beef patty with cheese n pepperoni (another NYC staple not many know of - take a fresh Jamaican beef patty, slice it open, cover with mozzarella and top with pepperoni then bake. see also beef patty on a roll with cheese - perfect drunk food) Not on the list but I'm also a fan of Dani's House of Pizza in Kew Gardens. I love their signature pesto slice which is usually sold out. A few times my brother and I would get sick of waiting for a pesto slice so we'd order ahead and pick up a full pesto pie. Their regular slice is very good with a sweet sauce. During the summer I sometimes walk or cycle up to forest park, walk around until I'm hungry then go to Dani's for a pesto and regular slice. I usually sit on a bench at the LIRR station around the corner and dig in.
e40 4y ago
Arinell’s in Berkeley is the best NY style pizza in the Bay Area. Just reading these comments makes me want to go there this weekend. I worked near them for 12 years and ate there twice a week the entire time. They are that good.

NYC Slice

670 points by mbil 4y ago

cactusplant7374 4y ago

Any learnings beyond the dollar value?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Justsignedup 4y ago

fascinating. this site crashes firefox.

mattmoose21 4y ago
same here.
jffry 4y ago
I can't remember the last time I saw Firefox hard crash to desktop like this, instead of the individual content tab dying. Impressive!
ksherlock 4y ago
and MacOS Safari.
babypuncher 4y ago
I'm having no trouble with Firefox 108 on Fedora
LegitShady 4y ago
latest firefox running on windows 10. I have a bunch of addons and some of them block scripts. No crash.
acdha 4y ago
Do you have some kind of extension like an ad blocker? It’s fine in Firefox and Safari on a clean install so I’m wondering whether there might be some issues related to how large the page is or possibly a video driver problem.
- MajimasEyepatch 4y ago
  It crashes for me on macOS. I have a couple of password manager extensions and React Developer Tools installed. I would not be surprised if it's LastPass. Edit: Interestingly, Chrome flashes a couple of times too when I scroll down to the section of the page with the Carto map plugin. I can see when I inspect the DOM that there's supposed to be an iframe there, but it looks Chrome is just killing the iframe rather than crashing to desktop. Safari hangs but does not crash when it gets to Carto. So something is screwy with that map plugin.
usefulcat 4y ago
Works fine here, FF 108.0.2 on MacOS 12.6.1, Apple silicon

yamtaddle 4y ago

> but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered This is true of the big national chains, too. They've kept prices relatively stable for damn near 25 years, at this point, but quality has gotten far worse over that same time span. That mouth-watering Pizza Hut pie you remember from 1992 isn't all nostalgia—every now and then I find single-location or small-chain joints that make pizza very similar to how I remember those tasting. Thing is, those are like $15+ a pie now, with a coupon or special. But you can still get larges for $8 or less (coupon or special, which are available 100% of the time) at the major chains—they're just not the same pizza you were getting in the 80s up to about the late 90s. [EDIT] In fact, the 2020-on inflation is the first time I've seen the big chains seriously give in on keeping price increases in check. They've gone up like 20% in the last couple years.

DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
At the risk of sounding like an ad I’m kind of startled at how not-terrible Little Caesars is for the price. A lot of food and a completely reasonable tasting and baked pie for stupid cheap when compared to almost everything else.
- alar44 4y ago
  Little Caesars is objectively terrible, sorry.
  - ttymck 4y ago
    The subjective nature of reality disagrees with you, sorry.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Seconded, cannot relate. They're worth the $6 or whatever but not a penny more. Better than most $6 frozen pizzas, I suppose. They have that going for them. They're also a good example of this, actually. They'd held their $5 price point for a long time but had gradually been cutting toppings until they were comically bare. Then they introduced a $6 "extra toppings" (or something, I don't recall the way they phrased it) pie that just had the same amount the normal ones used to. Post-Covid I'm pretty sure the sad-pie price is up to $6, and the actually-has-toppings edition is $7.

downer123 4y ago

Table 87 is a great slice.

itisit 4y ago
Agree, but sauce can be a bit too sweet.

googlryas 4y ago

Gotta get up to 101st and Broadway and try sal & Carmines. Little hole in the wall but was my favorite NYC slice despite no one ever talking about it.

cccybernetic 4y ago
Yeah, while not my favorite, Sal & Carmines is great. Only other truly great slice joint on the UWS is Freddie's (which is phenomenal). A new-ish place, Mama's Too on 106th, isn't too bad either.
- nobody9999 4y ago
  Don't forget Koronet between 110 and 111. Jumbo slices FTW!
  - valarauko 4y ago
    There's also a Koronet on Lex between 77th & 78th - my goto whenever I'm in the area.
ryanwaggoner 4y ago
Yes!! I live a few blocks from there and it’s one of the best I’ve had in the city.
Involution 4y ago
Spent my adolescence going to S&C's nearly day of summer vacations. My closest childhood friend and I always grabbed two slices and sat at the table directly behind the column. Even though the original proprietors have passed on, the cheese slices are still world-class. The flavor of nostalgia probably enriches the sauce and cheese, but Sal and Camrine's remains the slept-on great slice in Manhattan.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Yeah unfortunately sal passed on maybe 7 years ago? But his grandson now operates it and was working under sal for quite a while before sal passed, and I didn't really notice a difference in the quality of a slice after the grandson took over. Unfortunately I moved to Colorado a few years ago and it's impossible to get even a mediocre slice here, let alone my favorite of all time

charlus 4y ago

I'm visiting NYC for the first time in May - first thing I researched was pizza, so really appreciate this work. Thank you.

RandallBrown 4y ago
What's great about pizza in New York is the spontaneity. After a night out there will always be somewhere nearby with a pretty good slice of pizza. The best pizza I had while living in New York isn't any better than the best pizza I've had in Seattle but the average slice was much better.
wnolens 4y ago
There's so so many places honestly. I could rhyme off a half dozen more on this list that some new yorker would say is "the best". But coming from out of town your expectations are probably sky high. If pizza is high on your list, go for gold. It's a fun thing to do in the city. Also you need to treat both categories separately - slice, and whole pie. different game.

morley 4y ago

Notably absent from this list is L'Industrie in Williamsburg!

nobody9999 4y ago
>Notably absent from this list is L'Industrie in Williamsburg! As an old guy, I try to avoid Hipster doofus land^W^W^W Williamsburg as much as possible. YMMV
- hacker_newz 4y ago
  You're about a decade behind in neighborhood stereotypes there boomer.
  - nobody9999 4y ago
    I'm not a boomer, but fuck you very much for saying so. I say that not to be mean, but "boomer" has become a slur and I prefer not to be insulted unless it's actually accurate. I have been in Hipster doofus land[0] in the past few years and most of what I experienced reinforced my stance. I will continue to try to avoid it. [0] I'd love to say I made that nickname up, but I didn't. Works for me though. Edit: Touched on the source of a wonderful moniker.
    - elteto 4y ago
      You complain about being called boomer while simultaneously reducing an entire neighborhood to "hipster doofus land". That's some real boomer stuff.
      - nobody9999 4y ago
        One is an objective thing (boomers are those born between 1945 and 1962) and the other is subjective (Williamsburg, Billyburg, Hipster Doofus Land) labeling. The first isn't the case (I was born after 1962) and the second is a matter of opinion.[0] But please. Do continue to pile on. I don't want to take away one of your few pleasures in life. Toodles! [0] Here's another one for you: If you can't put New York, NY after your address, you don't live in New York.[1] Have at that one too, friend. [1] As a NYC native, I note that I've lived in every borough except Stagnant Island (for obvious reasons) over the past 50+ years. As such (no Dunning-Kruger[2] effect necessary, can you make such a statement?), I am entitled to make such pronouncements. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

paxys 4y ago

> This calculation excludes dollar slices. So, they only counted data from places where the price has gone up and concluded that...the price has gone up.

pastor_bob 4y ago
Dollar slice is a dollar for a reason. Barely any cheese or sauce.
none_to_remain 4y ago
A dollar slice and a regular slice are related things but definitely different categories
czinck 4y ago
Dollar slices aren't just a slice of pizza for a dollar, they're a different business model focusing on just sheer volume. Joe's has at least 3 employees (cashier, guy taking your order and reheating the slice, and guy making the pizzas), plus prep people in the back, and 4+ different pies, and 20+ seats. The dollar place I go to has 2 guys, they don't reheat it, any toppings are just added onto your slice not actually cooked into the pie, no seats. I'm ignoring differences in quality/quantity of ingredients because I've had some great dollar slices, but also some abysmal ones. That said, a lot of dollar slices are now $1.50.
freejazz 4y ago
Dollar slices aren't actual pizza, it's a pizza-like product

rcme 4y ago

Many who grow up in the NY area grow up on pizza. In childhood, it's often eaten as a quick meal that doesn't require cooking. In adolescence, pizza is one of the only foods you can afford to eat out with your friends after school. In college, there's nothing like a drunken slice of pizza at 1 am. It's hard to overstate what a satisfying comfort food pizza is. There's truly nothing like it.

dieselgate 4y ago
I, personally, occasionally miss choking on the super stringy cheese of bowling alley pizza of elementary school era birthday parties. Do not miss drunken pizza of college as much.. Now it's just mostly costco frozen 5-pack
kasey_junk 4y ago
That’s not just NY. I suspect it’s basically all of the US.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  The Ninja Turtles got this picky-eater-as-a-child fella to give it a fair shake. Was my undisputed favorite type of food for like 15 years straight (when I started trying more things and discovered Middle Eastern and Indian food). And that's out in a part of the country with mostly-bad pizza options. Nothing half as good as a so-so NY slice, certainly.
- cammikebrown 4y ago
  Nowhere in the US is a slice as consistently affordable and ubiquitous as NYC.
- o_____________o 4y ago
  It's different in NY due to the ubiquity, downward pressure on price, and all-hour coverage. You can be nearly anywhere, at any time, and be fed in minutes. You often eat while standing and remaining social. The experience anchors itself in your mind as an instant, omnipresent solution to hunger. There's also probably something to the infinitely nuanced territorial aspect of which slice is better (the answer is Prince Street).

eugenekolo 4y ago

Anecdotally, I've felt the same way. Didn't properly record it.. but, slices these days in NYC (and outside) are definitely lacking in sauce lately. Some places even feel like they're cutting on salt and oil too. I will add that the quality also highly depends on when you go. Generally, the busier it is, the worse the quality. The author states that Joe's is one of the better ones, but I think the quality has gone down too. I was there in 2014, 2017, and 2022. Digging up my photos to review the sauce amounts, but I felt 2022 was very lackluster to previous memories.

enjo 4y ago

I can't turn up my spreadsheet just this second but I did something similar when I worked in Manhattan. I did 54 slices. My big takeway was that I really don't like Joes and that I will die on the hill that Pizzeria Suprema, despite being touristy , is the best slice that I've had in Manhattan.

tz18 4y ago

Pizza is 3USD a slice in NY?!??!?!?

valarauko 4y ago
Yup, that's pretty par for the course at most places that sell by the slice. Dollar slice places now mostly charge $1.25-$1.50 for a plain cheese slice.
ProAm 4y ago
Are you saying that is expensive or inexpensive? Avg's to 18 bucks a pie, which for cheese seems about right for NYC
- skipkey 4y ago
  Seems ridiculously cheap to me. here in Phoenix, there are 2 restaurants near me that do by the slice, both around $5. Most restaurants don’t offer it. I have only spent a month or so in NYC working a decade back, and at the time every thing was more expensive than home except pizza. I think every region probably has its cheap food for the working class. Here it’s tacos, there it was cheap slices.
  - ProAm 4y ago
    How big are the slices near you? Im assuming large-ish like a NYC slice, where 6 slices will make the pie. If you are paying $5.00 for a slice of cheese pizza in Phoenix, that means a whole cheese pizza would cost $30 USD? That is insanity. Granted I think it would be cheaper if you bought a whole pie, but for dough, cheese and sauce that is still a very healthy profit. I agree every region has its own good cheap food. Interesting stuff.
wnolens 4y ago
on the cheap side (for a decent one). You can get 2.50-2.75 in some spots. And of course there's a the $1 slice (for a quality sacrifice)

chubot 4y ago

I lived in Manhattan for the last year, and lived within train distance as a child, and it's pretty striking how much changing economics affect what you can get. Notice that all the slices are plain CHEESE or some variant of it (you can get it with no sauce, or no cheese too!) I can't get a mushroom or veggie slice anymore at so many places? Feels like a recipe for malnutrition and weight gain.

ptaffs 4y ago

Blogger and now author about the experience did something similar, reviewing pizza slices in NY, 2009-2011 http://www.sliceharvester.com/ http://www.sliceharvester.com/ https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Slice-Harvester/Colin-Atrophy-Hagendorf/9781476705897 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Slice-Harvester/Colin...

wefarrell 4y ago
I found my favorite pizza places through him, I really liked his taste. Unfortunately a lot of the places on that list have either closed down or changed.

babypuncher 4y ago

I find the perceived sensitivity to food pricing, especially in high income areas like NYC, interesting. The author points out that in 8 years, the average cost of a slice of pizza has hardly moved, but the amount of sauce on them has been reduced as a cost cutting measure. Would a pizza place really see reduced traffic if they kept the same recipe and raised their price another $0.55 to compensate for inflation?

lotsofpulp 4y ago
I stopped eating out almost entirely because throughout the 2010s, I feel like the probability of receiving an acceptable quality meal kept declining. I would much rather pay $25 (or more) per meal that is good 99% of the time than pay $15 for a meal that is good 80% or 60% or 40% of the time. Obviously, I am sure restaurant operators know their business, and maybe it just is not economical for prepared food to be good 99% of the time at a price that sufficient sales can be made.
pandama 4y ago
High income but also high competition.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  I get that it's high competition, but once the price difference between two slices of pizza is a few coins it stops being a deciding factor for me.

dr_ 4y ago

If you ever get a chance, try to grab a pie from Chrissy’s Pizza (no store, made in a home oven in BK, have to follow on insta for when pies can be ordered). For slices, NY Suprema good as well And some of the best slices can be found across the river in NJ - just travel up Bloomfield Avenue into the Caldwells and there are great slice shops all over.

dkdbejwi383 4y ago

Curious how the dollar slices added up to a non-whole dollar amount. The name would imply that a dollar slice is $1. Is $.99 also considered a dollar slice?

cammikebrown 4y ago
Only with last year’s inflation did dollar slices become more expensive. They were $1 for a long, long time.
- staringback 4y ago
  Still $1 if you know where to go
jb1991 4y ago
Most prices in the states are a nice round number minus one.
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trynewideas 4y ago
Only three of the 464 slices actually cost $1: Rony's Fresh Pizza, Sep 15th 2022, 6:23:16 pm Papa John's Pizza, Jun 14th 2021, 1:22:59 pm Pizza Market, May 21st 2021, 6:00:57 pm
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cammikebrown 4y ago

Looks like the correlation between the cost of a slice and a subway fare has decoupled. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Principle

hardwaregeek 4y ago

This is a fascinating list. No Mama's Too, no Prince St, no L'Industrie, no F&F. All of which are probably my top 4 for slices. Scarr's is there though, which rounds out my top 5. I don't eat a lot of pizza personally but I do love a good slice. What I love about New York isn't necessarily that we have the best pizza (although we do have places that are in the running for the best), but that the average quality is so damn high. You don't get a lot of overly doughy, bad cheese, bad sauce BS unless you frequent dollar slice shops.

lelandfe 4y ago
Prince is on there! It's a remarkable slice but the lines are frequently insane. L'Industrie is damn good. Highly recommend Action Bronson's Fuck That's Delicious episode there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOQUUyCRtiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOQUUyCRtiE
- kepoly 4y ago
  Chefs night out on munchies just did a good episode with them too https://youtu.be/boqYh-mrVW0 https://youtu.be/boqYh-mrVW0
valarauko 4y ago
> You don't get a lot of overly doughy, bad cheese, bad sauce BS unless you frequent dollar slice shops. I've eaten at plenty of dollar slice places and honestly find them adequate for the price. I think I've only ever had one terrible slice, ever - and it wasn't a dollar slice place. I was unsurprised when the place closed shortly after.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  When you're drunk and just want something quick, hard to beat.
  - valarauko 4y ago
    As someone who lives in the outer edge of an Outer Borough, my experience is somewhat different - most slice places close fairly early (10 pm on average in my area, slightly later on weekends) and long before bars do. As a consequence, my go-to when out and about is a chopped cheese from the local deli/bodega.

logicallee 4y ago

For anyone who hasn't been to New York this is what a slice looked like at my local pizza place down the street: https://imgur.com/a/9wRM859 https://imgur.com/a/9wRM859 Delicious.

wefarrell 4y ago
That's not really a typical NYC slice to be honest. The crust looks nonexistent, the dough is thicker and it doesn't look as cheesy.
- logicallee 4y ago
  True but it was delicious.
barbazoo 4y ago
I'd take a veggie one but damn that looks good.
freejazz 4y ago
That looks like shit pizza. It's a freaking loaf of bread. The dough isn't supposed to bake like that...

sebastian_z 4y ago

I have nice memories of Koronet. When studying late at night you could get a jumbo slice that substituted for a whole meal.

skrebbel 4y ago

I love how even in a city like NYC, there's a restaurant called "Pizza Italia". I mean it doesn't get more small-towny than that does it?

AlbertCory 4y ago

Nowhere on that page do I see "inflation-adjusted" price. That could be overall inflation, which would cover rent, wages, utilities, taxes, etc. The prices of tomatoes, flour, mozzarella, etc. would be even more relevant.

DevX101 4y ago

A fun project could be to quantify how much less pepperoni toppings, NY pizzerias have been putting on pizza. Train a CV model to detect what a slice is, what a pepperoni topping is. Then feed it public pictures of NY pizza over the past 10 years. An interesting result would be something like "NY pizzerias have been putting 16% less pepperoni on pizza". This would totally get news traffic and generate some buzz, and be a practical example of non-price inflation.

jablongo 4y ago
shrinkflation

tomcam 4y ago

> I did not rate the slices to avoid controversy and bribes. Whew

greenhearth 4y ago

Artichoke is gross. How do people like it, I will never understand.

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airstrike 4y ago
It's open super late and when you're drunk after going to a nearby club at 2:30am it hits the spot like few other slices do
yunwal 4y ago
It’s pricy drunk and high food. I would never seek it out sober but they disperse oil throughout the slice in a way that’s really satisfying if you’re under the influence.

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billiam 4y ago

Native New Yorker here. Out of towners are obsessed with the BEST slice, but the true measure of NYC's 45 degree greatness is the decent quality following a Poisson distribution. My tip: just travel to any random spot in the five boroughs. First; you will be impressed how close you are to a pizza spot wherever you are. Second: you will be impressed with the slice, and with the variety of people who are good at making it.

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LarryMullins 4y ago
Like out-of-towners asking which cheese steak shop in Philly is the best. The best is whichever corner shop is closest to you. If you're local and eat cheese steaks often, you don't drive all the way across the city to get such a lunch. You walk one or two blocks whichever shop you're near. But visitors want to experience the best, not experience it as a local would.
- audiodude 4y ago
  Ditto burritos in SF!
  - colordrops 4y ago
    San Diego as well...
- bluedays 4y ago
  There’s definitely the best, and when I was local I would definitely go out of my way for a good cheesesteak. Just not every time.
- Larrikin 4y ago
  Random cheesesteaks in Philly are far better than random cheesesteaks in any other city, but I would never recommend a tourist to go to a random spot over one of the highly rated places. You'll just feel it was good but over hyped. It's a waste of time for someone who is there temporarily and doesn't live in the city. If you go to a place like Joe's you'll understand why the food became famous in the first place and how much better cheesesteaks are in Philly.

tptacek 4y ago

I'm not a New Yorker, but a New York food person I follow has a small rant about how people obsess about the best NYC slice, but that the real point of NYC pizza is that it's available everywhere in the city, like that you are never far from a good NYC slice --- so that the idea of seeking out particular slices kind of misses the point. NYC'ers: how bad is that take? (None of this is to say that it's illegitimate for New Yorkers to have opinions about whether the NYC slices they happen to be near, or were near before, are better than the others --- in the same sense as there are Italian Beef rivalries in Chicago.)

bcobb 4y ago
This is 100% correct.
EduardLev 4y ago
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad take, but I would disagree. It’s kind of like any sports debate where you argue about who is the best or greatest of all time. You’re splitting hairs, but it’s still a fun debate. Also even at the level of your local places, after eating the amount of pizza you do in New York you can tell small differences in quality such that you will seek out specific places in a certain radius.
cainxinth 4y ago
> ...the real point of NYC pizza is that it's available everywhere in the city I have fam on the Upper East Side and it's not an area with a lot of pizzerias (and definitely not many slice joints). There is a ton of great pizza in the city (and the surrounding Jersey burbs), but you do have to travel a bit for it sometimes even if you live in the city.
mzg 4y ago
Honestly, a solid take! It’s more of an optimization problem — find the best balance of quality, proximity, and price, and you’ve got your favorite slice shop. If you’re at a friend’s or a loved one’s, that solution changes, and you begin to associate the flavor of that slice with them and their home. Sometimes it’s worth it to make a trip out to one of the pizza Meccas—Lucali, Joe’s on Carmine, L&B Spumoni Gardens, etc.—but more often than not, you’re set with your local slice. Unless you live in Downtown Brooklyn, where there is no good pizza. Then you’re just fucked.

barbazoo 4y ago

That one slice in Boston though

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djcannabiz 4y ago

The CSV is here if anyone wants to take a look https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kwc7V/4/dataset.csv https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kwc7V/4/dataset.csv

_elkue 4y ago

Hello, I am the maker of the website. I'm sorry to hear it's crashing some browsers, I'll try to figure out what's happening. It's a clean install of wordpress so I'm confused what I did wrong. The reason there is an odd amount for dollar slice total is that one place had the nerve to charge me tax ($1.09). I concede that the quality at Joes has gone down over the years. I am closely noting the recommendations in this thread, and I am very relieved to no longer have to eat bad pizza just to add it to the map.

ipnon 4y ago
I am glad to see you like Sunnyside Pizza too. I have had dreams about that place.
nemo44x 4y ago
Do you call it a "plain slice" for everyone else? Everyone I know in NYC calls it a "regular slice".
- astrojams 4y ago
  I grew up in NY and lived in NYC and I still call it a plain slice.
- _elkue 4y ago
  I've always called it a plain slice but I've heard regular/cheese/plain used interchangeably
- jagthebeetle 4y ago
  I'm from NYC and call it "plain" or "cheese." "Regular" makes me think too hard as to whether the "New York thing" is to say "regular" or "plain." It's also a lot of syllables. A similar phenomenon occurs with waiting "in [a/the] line" vs "on [a/the] line." I think I say either, but I'm "supposed to" say "on line."
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  when you order, it's called "a slice".

terran57 4y ago

Been living in New York for the past 20+ years. Sadly, inflation has diminished the quality and quantity of the average corner pizza shop's slice. Yes, the Artichoke Basil slice the author refers to is much more expensive, but it's also bigger than the average slice of pizza in NYC - and the quality of ingredients seems better. The $1 slice shops (now more like the $1.50 slice shops) live on low margin and high volume. I can attest that it's great when you're in a hurry and just want to get something in your system. For quality pizza slices, well, you're just going to have to pay $3-$5 for a slice nowadays ($1 or more for toppings).

wahnfrieden 4y ago
artichoke dough is way too thick. probably adds to the cost for no good reason, maybe because it's easier to bake consistently...
rngname22 4y ago
Yeah an Artichoke artichoke slice costs like $7 I think in Park Slope rn but it's a lot more filling than the $5.50 white slice I got last night from a mom and pop shop a block away.
yunwal 4y ago
Artichoke pizza is serviceable drunk food, but really not very good outside of that context.

scoofy 4y ago

I used to live above Best Pizza (Williamsburg) and lived there when they opened. In my opinion, the best heuristic for good pizza is just the quality of tomatoes they use. San Marzano or Roma for the east coast, but on the west coast you have a ton of local options. I'm not saying you can't have good pizza from processed tomato sauce, I'm just saying that a place that cares about the quality of tomatoes also cares about the quality of their pizza. A lot of quick order places will just have the cans visible. A great way to experiment with pizza is to just experiment with local tomatoes. I never wanted to become a pizza snob, but living on top of one of the most quality pizza joints in town and knowing the guys there and their favorite spots... well... now i am. Here's a basic recipe from Frank. Anyone can make extremely high quality pizza at home by following his advice: https://youtu.be/whnvQBhXh3A https://youtu.be/whnvQBhXh3A The funniest thing that happened there was probably when this interested guy was asking 'the locals' how we liked it, and what was popular... we found out a week later that he was very probably this NYT food reviewer: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/reviews/09under.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/reviews/09under.ht...

wahnfrieden 4y ago
the other nyc frank has good pizza advice on his instagram sometimes, on youtube anyway you can see his limone at least https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPVwdEmkco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPVwdEmkco i also lived around the corner from best pizza from their first year and frequented there. (though my true love was saltie.) sometimes frank experimented with the dough/bake method and asked what i thought, friendly people. i love their sicilian. rip bill
- scoofy 4y ago
  >rip bill Uff... yea. I think Bill and I might have been the two biggest bike nerds in the neighborhood. I always wanted to join him on RAGBRAI. Sadly, I waited too long.
areyousure 4y ago
Why can't you buy the same canned San Marzano tomatoes anywhere?

g42gregory 4y ago

It looks like the price of pizza has been steadily increasing while the quality going (somewhat?) down. I believe this fits the definition of inflation. Do you remember a year (longer?) ago, all major news sources were telling us that the inflation was only temporary? I wonder why nobody put together a web service that “gives us our memory back”, so that we could make better assessment of various news sources going forward and make better decisions as a result?

QuarterReptile 4y ago
I have etched into my brain the one where our president showed his seeming contempt for his countrymen by insinuating that we could believe such a boldface lie about inflation. “Talk of inflation,... the overwhelming consensus is that it’s going to pop up a little bit then go back down.” https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1485791682532675590?s=20 https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1485791682532675590?s... Edit: also, there are quite a few Twitter accounts that focus on content like this, though I wouldn't recommend spending much time on it.

itissid 4y ago

Guys, The best pizza in NY is in NJ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/dining/razza-pizza-review-jersey-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/dining/razza-pizza-review... Dunno why it is not included in this list..

null_shift 4y ago
The best pizza in NY is in New Haven.
yunwal 4y ago
Never been to Razza, but Bread and Salt in Hoboken was among the best slices I’ve had

Grazester 4y ago

There was a Papa John's in Bay Ridge that sold $1 slices in 2009. It was just a cheese slice but I enjoyed it. I do not enjoy Costco pizza and I enjoy more pizzas than I probably should.

_elkue 4y ago
I did include a dollar slice from Papa Johns in Brooklyn. It was not good, and I'm not sure if it's even still offered
mbStavola 4y ago
Speaking of Bay Ridge pizzerias circa 2009, there was a place on the corner of Bay Ridge Ave and Colonial called Lil Nino's (?) which served the absolute worst slices I've ever had. They essentially just plated up what was obviously frozen, microwave pizza. Their whole game plan seemed to be to appeal to the high school students in the area based on their location and the fact that they had a couple of Xbox 360s and TVs you could use. It was cool at first, but most of us just went back to picking up a couple of slices at Rocky and Nicky's across the street and going home to play Modern Warfare. I'm not sure they lasted more than six months to be honest.
e40 4y ago
Costco pizza is pretty terrible.

wallstprog 4y ago

There's not much that Staten Island has to brag about, but pizza is one of those things, and SI is very much under-represented here.

_elkue 4y ago
You're completely right. I wish I had visited more SI spots, some of my favorite pizza of all time has been on SI

wahnfrieden 4y ago

is the new lucali slice any good?

yunwal 4y ago
Great but still not worth the hype
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  oh i've been frequenting lucali for ages and it is worth the trouble for me, especially the calzone. i'm nearby and it's not hard to time it or chill at a cafe or bar. not many good no corkage byob places of that caliber either.
  - wnolens 4y ago
    gah i'm so far it would require a day off work spent entirely to get it. i'm still doing it someday though.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      when i was still selling my time to employers i would just wfh and camp out at a nearby cafe latter part of the day with view of the line

neilv 4y ago

The best slice in the Boston area ("the city that always sleeps") was the one you could get at 2am. It had a loose connection to HN-style hackers. Hi-Fi Pizza and Subs was a rare place that would serve the Central Square clubgoers around last call, as well as the people walking home in the cold from a late night at MIT. There'd be a welcoming warm light from the somewhat gritty street, and a fast moving line. You'd get to the front of the line, say something like "slice of mushroom, please", they'd always say "2.10, please", you pay and take it, and step to the side, to quickly shake the container of grated parmesan. Then you walk the rest of the way home (or back to the lab), munching the slice, soul recharged by warm tasty cheese and crust. (Sadly, Hi-Fi closed years ago. https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/cambridge-chronicle-tab/2014/03/11/hi-fi-pizza-closes-after/38288505007/ https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/cambridge-chronicle-tab/20... I was very cross when it was quickly replaced by a vegetarian food startup, and I'm vegetarian. A couple weeks ago, the even more MIT-beloved food place, Mary Chung (which I first heard of as a kid, in stories of MIT hackers), also shut down. https://www.boston.com/community/restaurants/mary-chung-restaurant-will-permanently-close-at-the-end-of-2022/ https://www.boston.com/community/restaurants/mary-chung-rest... )

sometalk 4y ago
Man, I loved Hi-Fi. Don't get me wrong, I love Clover, but Hi-Fi was special. Their mozzarella sticks used to have south asian spices sprinkled, and to me it was the the best of the east and the west. So many late nights were thawed by that place. FWIW, I think Mary Chung wanted to retire and be done with it.
- neilv 4y ago
  One time, I was picking up rare takeout at Mary Chung, and I somewhat excitedly asked the older woman at the register, "Are you Mary Chung?" She smiled and said, "Yes, we are." :)
tamade 4y ago
Best slice is Noch's in harvard sq
4y ago

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

I agree with most of the comments in the thread about NYC, but would like to point out that there are some really great old school pizza places in Nassau County (Long Island, just east of NYC) that rival any NYC pizza place.

sacnoradhq 4y ago

Cheese is the most expensive ingredient, and labor the most expensive cost of delivery. Do NYC "dollar" slices skimp on cheese in quantity and/or quality?

moloch-hai 4y ago
On everything.

skizm 4y ago

Maybe unpopular opinion: NJ has better pizza on average, although you can find better pizza in NYC if you're looking for something specific. Just my opinion obviously.

535188B17C93743 4y ago
this seems like a relatively popular opinion around new york to people who actually live in the city.
shostack 4y ago
Chicagoan here. It's cute to watch y'all compare that thing you refer to as pizza.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  Not a native Chicagoan here, but lived in the area for quite a while. Chicago has not one but three distinct styles of pizza, the deep-dish which many think of as "Chicago style", the thin-crust with a relatively thin (compared to deep-dish, anyway) layer of sauce, cheese, and meats, and the square-cut tavern style. All three are superior to anything the East Coast has to offer, IMO.
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    But are not, when you get right down to it, pizza at all.
    - sbaiddn 4y ago
      If you ask an Italian, neither is NYC's
      - moloch-hai 4y ago
        It is anyway possible to find pizza in NYC. If rare. There is distressingly much Chicago whatever it is, besides. The best pizza I ever had was off a cart in Perugia, Umbria, in the '90s. It had potato slices, parmesan spears, green olive oil, and crunchy salt. You may doubt, but it was very much pizza. The crust makes the pizza.

probablynish 4y ago

Reading Zvi's taxonomy of pizzas ( https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/restaurant-guide-2-pizza/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/restaurant-guide-2-p... ) was when I realized that NY style pizza is the type I love. Bookmarking this list to go through on a future trip to NYC!

pzone 4y ago
This list is a bit idiosyncratic like one guy’s personal tastes. A lot of far away inconvenient locations. Personally I would suggest going to the fan favorites like scarr’s and L’Industrie instead. Bleecker Street is in the intersection of these strategies
- probablynish 4y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I probably should start with the fan favorites. I'll check those out when I'm next in new york!

geephroh 4y ago

This represents what social media should really be about. I salute you, Liam.

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msoad 4y ago

The obsession with "best NYC pizza" is funny to New Yorkers. Pizza is usually not a food that you plan for it and go somewhere far to have it. The best pizza is the one nearby. They're all good. Just enjoy it and stop with the FOMO

moloch-hai 4y ago

I have found that I need to pay $5 for a good slice, nowadays. Most pizza even in NYC is not good, by my standards. I.e., I can do better than those at home.

quickthrower2 4y ago
Per pizza ($40US) that is getting on for a high-end five-star main meal where I live.

bluedino 4y ago

Since the pandemic, large pizzas have all gone up to $11 from the chains, so I have just started buying $4/5 frozen pizzas (coupon or on sale), or the $6 take home and bake pizza from the grocery store deli.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

Bleecker Street Pizza has the best pizza in NYC.

hot_gril 4y ago

Excludes the dollar slices, but oddly enough I prefer those over the more expensive ones. I think it's cause they're less oily. Do they have fake cheese or something?

standardUser 4y ago

It's difficult to notice inflation living in NYC because everything is just expensive. If a coffee or a slice of pizza or a bagel goes up by 20%, that's less than a buck on average, and prices among those products already vary by a lot more than buck. So it's never going to be a shocking increase. Or even noticeable. Combine that with the resignation that most New Yorkers have to the fact that shit is just expensive, and it's hard to really feel an impact from all this inflation that the media has been blaring about for a year. Am I spending slightly more day-to-day than I did a year or two ago? Probably, but I'd be hard-pressed to prove it. I guess it's more obvious if you make a chart!

nxm 4y ago
Also a function of your salary… you don’t feel that marginal increase, but many non-tech sector folks living on a budget definitely do
- standardUser 4y ago
  I am just always broke. But yes, families are likely purchasing many of the same items at the same locations each week and can both see and feel the difference. But the vast majority of people I know in NY are single or childless and they seem, like me, to consider their paycheck forfeit to the city and it's infinite offerings.

m0llusk 4y ago

This thread is making me hungry.

dsubburam 4y ago

No luck if you're vegan looking for a slice? (Searched all comments for "vegan").

weird-eye-issue 4y ago

I think this whole thing would have been a lot better/more useful if they rated them

acalzycalzy 4y ago

Some guy did this way before him

hparadiz 4y ago

Everyone is obsessed with NYC but these types of slices can be found in all the major east coast cities and is definitely one thing I miss about Philly. I'm in LA now and you'd think with how many Italians there are around here there'd be a higher standard but nope.

hnick 4y ago
Well, and I can't personally confirm this, they say NYC water is somehow better for making the dough in this style of pizza.
- cute_boi 4y ago
  Well, NYC got the best water quality :)
- hparadiz 4y ago
  That's a myth. There's a pretty good NYC style pizza place in Maui and it tastes exactly the same.
yunwal 4y ago
Philly and New Haven are basically the only 2 other cities that have solid “pizza cultures”. If you go to Baltimore, DC, or Boston you can’t get anything close to an NY slice without traveling significantly out of your way. Even then, the ubiquity of the NYC slice shop can’t be matched
- hparadiz 4y ago
  You'd be surprised. My absolute favorite pizza in the entire world is from a small family owned pizza place in the suburbs of Philly. This spot. https://g.co/kgs/MYr2E9 https://g.co/kgs/MYr2E9 In Philly my favorite is https://g.co/kgs/1RkGda https://g.co/kgs/1RkGda Also the Jersey shore has a ton of spots.
  - yunwal 4y ago
    Yeah an important clarification is New York is really only dominant in slice shops. Great restaurant pizza exists almost everywhere now. I’ll have to check out your Philly recs.

graycat 4y ago

Pizza costs? Two old posts on topic and possibly of value, one pizza for one for about $1 per pizza: Pizza is one of my standard food items, and I explained how I make pizza in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34081087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34081087 with some more details in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085805 Those two, old posts might be of some value for people interested in pizza. For costs, I estimate the cost of ingredients for my pizza for one person at about $1 per pizza, that is, a lot less than single slices in NYC.

anonu 4y ago

I wonder if there's a $1 slice anywhere in NYC. Might be really small

bcohen123 4y ago
There are dozens, all over the city!
shaunsingh 4y ago
Not sure if I'm missing anything in your comment, but the study purposely excludes dollar slices. You can find a lot of 1$ slices in nyc, and they usually taste pretty good!
elijaht 4y ago
It’s incredibly easy to find a dollar slice in NYC
wnolens 4y ago
There are many, it's practically it's own category of slice. There's definitely a quality hit, but still a great value. And they churn through them so much that you're quite likely to get one fresh out of the oven - which in my opinion beats a better slice that's been sitting there for a few hours. The $1 slice nearest chelsea flea market is the best I've had.

KingLancelot 4y ago

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brailsafe 4y ago

That's a lot of pepperoni over only 9 years. Have never visited New York, but I'm sure the pizza is fine enough. But is it as good as a any neopolitan pizza you can get in any PNW city? Anyone? Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland have pretty good, though expensive pizza.

staticfish 4y ago
Sorry, I live in Seattle and it's not even on the same league as even the worst East Coast Pizza.

abruzzi 4y ago

I actually prefer my pizza with less sauce, or preferably white pizza (I know, sacrilege) either the garlic butter variant or the ricotta variant. I've never had pizza in NYC, but favorites have always been Rizzo's and Roman Delight in the northern Philly suburbs. Both great places that I've eaten at hundreds of times. I'm sure NYC has good pizza, but Philadelphia is no slouch.

ronty88 4y ago

Not all heroes wear capes. This made my day.

wnolens 4y ago
Yes, as a NYC resident I love a good convo about pizza. This thread made me very happy to see everyone appreciating pizza

qvarting 4y ago

Similar account for kebab in Sweden https://www.instagram.com/kebabogram/ https://www.instagram.com/kebabogram/ Waiting for the stats from there as well :)

koliber 4y ago

Why are dollar slices excluded? I can make a couple of guesses, but would love to hear the author's reason(s).

napolux 4y ago

Same quality decline is happening in Italy. We're seeing also a polarization, at least in the north, where I live. On one side "very bad pizza, low/avg price", on the other side "very good pizza, higher prices". All the middle, average pizza places with reasonable prices are going out of business or moving to the the bad side.

neycoda 4y ago

"The biggest thing I have noticed is the decline in the amount of sauce put on slices. I’m sure this is a cost-saving measure, but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered." Yes, that's generally what happens with a _stupid_ "cost-saving measure", whicb our culture defends to the hilt for some reason. There's ways to cut costs without compromising quality, called a _smart_ cost-saving measure, but our culture isn't about quality anymore, is it? It's all about saving/making money, but money doesn't taste very good, does it? I'd rather spend a little more for a quality piece of pizza than save money eating something that tastes more like cardboard than before.

johnjungles 4y ago

It’s the water lol

talos 4y ago

RIP http://www.sliceharvester.com/ http://www.sliceharvester.com/

deleted 4y ago

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quirk 4y ago

Mario's on Dekalb is truly great, glad to see it made his list of the best. Three Luigi's on Grand is even better though!

MisterTea 4y ago

Native from Ozone Park, still living here. I'm excited but not surprised to see Ozone Pizza AND New Park on that list. This neighborhood along with Howard Beach to the south was mostly Italian immigrants and their descendants so good Italian food was/is a staple. Of course it was full of mobsters and is the Goodfellas neighborhood; parts were even filmed around here for authenticity, check out Nier's Tavern. Into the late 90's and early 00's you could still walk into a local joint like Ozone or Romeo's and sometimes in the corner would be a table of well dressed older gentlemen speaking Italian. And no one sat near them because you knew not to. New Park is a local landmark and its been around for decades, my father ate there as a kid. They have this unique old school slice with lightly sweet sauce and the bottom is salted giving a wonderful balance of flavor to the ingredients. They don't make frilly slices so no buffalo or vegetable slices, just standard toppings. It's big with JFK workers and cops so the place is busy and volume is high and they tend to under-cook the pizzas so ask for it well done. And even if its under cooked and slightly doughy its still damn good. Ozone Pizza is not only good but cheap. I can order a pie, usually half mushroom/eggplant and half pepperoni, with an order of garlic twists that comes with this amazing marinara sauce for $23 and change. Delivered. Domino's cant compete in price or quality. They also have a really good buffalo slice based on a white slice. Before I stopped eating a little too rich I used to walk over and grab a buffalo slice and a beef patty with cheese n pepperoni (another NYC staple not many know of - take a fresh Jamaican beef patty, slice it open, cover with mozzarella and top with pepperoni then bake. see also beef patty on a roll with cheese - perfect drunk food) Not on the list but I'm also a fan of Dani's House of Pizza in Kew Gardens. I love their signature pesto slice which is usually sold out. A few times my brother and I would get sick of waiting for a pesto slice so we'd order ahead and pick up a full pesto pie. Their regular slice is very good with a sweet sauce. During the summer I sometimes walk or cycle up to forest park, walk around until I'm hungry then go to Dani's for a pesto and regular slice. I usually sit on a bench at the LIRR station around the corner and dig in.

e40 4y ago

Arinell’s in Berkeley is the best NY style pizza in the Bay Area. Just reading these comments makes me want to go there this weekend. I worked near them for 12 years and ate there twice a week the entire time. They are that good.