To the Pizzerias I Love
“I was looking for something I couldn’t replace. I was running away from the only thing I’ve ever known.” — Bon Jovi, Who Says You Can’t Go Home
Sometimes we are in times of need; a time late at night after we’ve been at the bar for a long time, a noontime when we’ve been staring at our computer screens all morning and cannot fathom eating lunch in the cafeteria or at our desk, a day as a teenager when we are hungry and only have so much money and so much decision making ability. These needs at these times are filled perfectly by any pizza. It doesn’t need to be fancy and it certainly doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be pizza. That’s the point of most pizza, but that’s not the point of why we are here today.
We’re here today to honor the highest form of this need-filler; we’re here for the good pizza place. You know the one. The one you might not go to in the above situations because maybe there is always a wait, because maybe they don’t do slices. These places, though, serve another need, they serve as a place to congregate and stuff ourselves with delicious pizza. When you just need a long lunch, or after a particularly crucial rec basketball game, or when you’re back home with your family and you just want pizza, but you want the good pizza. Yeah they might have a shitty bar, and they might be using the same cups they’ve been using for twenty years, or they might not even have alcohol, but that’s the point (and the birch beer or orange soda is the way to go anyway). Yeah you’re going to have to figure out who wants what and concessions will likely be made. One pepperoni, one everything (No anchovies? Fine, but please note my reluctance), one plain even though who actually prefers plain, oh that’s right, Ryan only eats plain. I forget why we even invite Ryan. It is all good though because you’re all in it together and you’re in it for some delicious pizza. These places are the best. And not just any of these places, your place is the best. It’s the best because it’s your place, even if the waitress is always mean. Especially because the waitress is always mean. Because it’s your place
We’re also here today because people seem to care less and less about these places. No one gets excited about these places anymore because no one can talk about these places without someone bringing up the place with the oven imported from Italy, the place with artisanal pies, the place making it’s sausage from the pigs being humanely slaughtered from the adjacent county, or the place serving small plates and craft beers as well as pizzas that are half the size. They say things like, “I haven’t been to Dom’s since Pizza Restaurant X opened. Have you been? Pizza Restaurant X has a pizza with an egg and shaved truffles on it that’ll blow your mind. And the other day they had ones with a fried soft shell crab — so perfect for the season with the unfiltered lager they have on tap. I try a new one every time. Mark and Andrea love it because they can each get their own.”
These places are good, sometimes even great. Their pizza is delicious, but they’re not pizzerias, either on the low or high end of the spectrum. They’re restaurants that specialize in pizza. They give us something to analyze, they give us something to discuss, something that can be said about our taste that we would like others to know about our taste. And that’s great, those places are great, and enjoying those places is great, but to ignore the everyday in order to pretend to live exclusively in the 99th percentile is doing ourselves and our happiness a disservice. When someone says that they like to grab tacos at the truck that’s usually parked on West 4th when they’re working late, you don’t have to say that you love the duck carnitas tacos at Cosme. When someone says something funny based on the conversation you’re having, you don’t pull up a youtube clip of a stand-up comedian and say the joke in the video is even funnier.
We can enjoy the good pizza and the pizza places that serve it, while still knowing that there are delicious pizzas being served at restaurants. The former is communal, imperfect, and nostalgic, while the latter is designed and researched and exploratory. One gives pleasure, while the other begs us to know if we’ve told our friends how much pleasure was provided. There is a place for both in our hearts, souls, and mouths. There is more happiness to be had in enjoying both. So let us not dismiss the visceral because it is easier to articulate the intellectual. Let us enjoy the good pizza without always having to discuss the other pizza that is good.
