Happy Accidents: Francisco Balagtas, @DOLLARPIZZASLICENYC.
When it comes to the dollar slice, Balagtas knows what tastes best.
Vinny’s Pizzeria, Friday, May 6th at 2:45pm. Francisco Balagtas sits at the small two person table in the back corner of Vinny’s Pizzeria. High school students from the school nearby flow in and out. All the lights are off except the pendants that hang over the kitchen and shine flattering light onto the pizza. Little would either the regular customer or the owner of the dark and shabby pizzeria know that Balagtas runs a food instagram, dedicated to New York’s infamous ‘one dollar slice’. Balagtas has visited almost every dollar slice pizzeria in New York City.
Balagtas started the project, back in August of 2014, while working late hours at the company he worked for Soho’s office. Balagtas would scour the West Village on his skateboard at 11 or 12 o’clock searching for something to eat when he stumbled upon a pizzeria, with a deal one could only dream of, one dollar pizza. In his excitement at this discovery, Balagtas called up a friend a few days later, saying ‘I felt like I could eat dollar slice pizza forever’ and in response his friend said, “‘I bet you a hundred bucks you can’t do that, and I’ll give you two years’. They shook on it, and that was that. “The bet, is a nothing bet, I’ve spent more on eating pizza” said Balagtas.
Initially he would record the pizzeria by taking a photo and sending it to his friend, it then hit him “why not put them on Instagram, that way we could refer back to it”. It wasn’t until Balagtas had tried his fourth dollar pizzeria that he realised how different each slice was: “I started dissecting, reviewing and talking about the cheese, the crust and the sauce. I went back to the older posts and fixed and formatted everything” said Balagtas.
A few months later, a friend put him in contact with an editor of a food blog, who called Balagtas to do an interview over the phone. “I didn’t really think anything of it” said Balagtas. The day after the interview was published, he woke up to hundreds of notifications and emails. Later that same week Channel 11 News contacted him to do an interview after a terrible snowstorm had rolled through the city. That night Balagtas was: “on the floor of my apartment, rolling laughing. My sister had my phone in her hand watching my follower count go up. After that I felt like it was this duty to keep going” said Balagtas.
As he has gone on to review around 88 pizzeria, Balagtas could be called an expert on what makes the perfect slice. “The ones I’ve found the to be really good are the ones that are doing that really evenly… Places that get a good rating are just presenting everything well, it’s only three things: it’s the crust, the cheese, the sauce.” said Balagtas. When reviewing Balagtas’ formula is fairly simple: how good it folds, how greasy it is, and how the crust at the very end tastes. Balagtas never goes to get a slice when he is too hungry or too full, and does each review the same way so that there is no bias. Most importantly there is never a second slice, “it’s a one and done deal. You only get one chance” said Balagtas.
The bet will end, this coming August, but Balagtas does not plan to stop posting. “Who’s to say that I’m done. There’s a lot of dollar pizza places outside of New York and out of the country, like in Japan or Russia, where they love American pizza. I’ll still keep it @dollarpizzanyc but maybe I’ll start going into the U.S. or global” said Balagtas. Balagtas was also offered a book deal and help creating an app last January but has yet to accept either offer, “I’m not trying to sell out”. In the end Balagtas is leaning towards the book deal; he envision it, “a book you can see at urban outfitters.” While all of the attention he has gotten from the instagram is great, Balagtas see the universality of his project: “This is why some people liked it so much. They think, “I’ve had pizza; I’ve been to that place.” It’s easily relatable. I guess that’s what it means to New York. It’s something we can call our own. It’s a universal thing.”
