The country
is undergoing a pizza revolution which was created in New York by the original
pizza kings such as Tortono’s Pizza in Coney Island Brooklyn where when the
owner Jerry died in 1994 the New York papers proclaimed “The King of Pizza is
dead”. A huge acknowledgment for the man
whose family helped put another New York mainstay-Lombardi’s Pizza on the map.
Lombardi’s was the first licensed pizza place in America dating back to the
1905 on Mulberry street New York. Patsy’s
up in Harlem which came on the scene early in the 1930’s and is another famous New
York brick oven pizzeria and like Lombardi’s and Tortono’s also featured handmade,
hand tossed, fresh mozzarella and fresh homemade sauce cooked in a coal burning
brick oven like the ones many bakeries have been using for thousands of years
to bake bread.
Then in the early 90’s a couple of young upstarts from Brooklyn
who had been fans of New York’s finest pizza places decided to open the first
wood burning brick oven pizza place on the forgotten borough of Staten Island
then Brooklyn New York but along with the standard Margarita pizza that the
other famous pizza places were doing, they took it up a notch and created a
line of unique and truly “gourmet” pizzas such as the original Vodka Pie and
the Mushroom Madness made with the relatively, unknown at the time, porcini
mushroom. They called their place Goodfella’s Brick Oven Pizza and soon became
pizza celebrities featured in all the local media and then international media
after winning the World’s Best Pizza contest at Pizza Expo. Now not to be New
York biased it would be rude to leave out the left hand coast and the
incredible success of California Pizza Kitchen who took the brick oven idea and
put the California twist on it with such great pizzas like the BBQ Chicken, Tai
and Jamaican Jerk Chicken then built the concept to international status. With
the advent of cooking shows and the fantastic popularity of gourmet foods,
social media, 24 hour a day television and the increase of public awareness regarding
fresh food, the organic craze, celebrity chefs and a demand for new and
exciting dining experiences, the stage was set for the current Fast Casual
Pizza Trend. The Fast Casual Pizza trend is the right thing at the right time
and fills a need for a premium gourmet food item that is both fast and easy to transport
without diminishing the flavor and eating experience. Today's consumers, mostly millennials, are looking for a better product in a trendy environment that fits their budget. So the pizza race begins.
Chipotle, the fast casual
giant, is currently developing its pizza chain model called Pizza Local and has
many industry experts eagerly standing by to see how it evolves with its
revolving brick oven for speed and consistency for its fresh made dough. Some
other up and coming names to watch out for that are also using the revolvingbrick ovens are Revolve, Spin Neapolitan, Pie Craft and The Pies the Limit. The
other big player behind the scene in this game is the Pizza School of New York
which has been setting industry standards by training students in an actual
restaurant on the latest revolving brick ovens for a real time hands on experience
thereby creating many successful operators and local pizza sensations when the
students enter the fray with new found skills. This is an exciting time for the
pizza world and the consumers are the biggest winners with ever increasing choices
and locations to get great pizza.
