The Pizza Grand Prix III had a great turnout. During a Saturday of way too many choices (good weather, Gallery Hop, The Fitness Expo and etc), 60 plus people came to dine on a plethora of pizza pies.

This is what we ate or tried to (pizza place and topping) in order of appearance:

Zach and Mary’s Venison is for Lovers Pizza x2
Hounddogs – Meat Lovers
Hounddogs – Veggie Pizza
Portofinos II – Pepperoni
Mellow Mushroom – Bacon
Dewey’s – Southwest BBQ Chicken
Dewey’s – Wild Mushroom
Dewey’s – ?
Dewey’s – ?
Dewey’s – ?
Cafe Daniella – Bianca
Cafe Daniella – Mahgerita
Bono to Gone – San Rolando
Bono to Gone – Pesto, Tomato, Basil
Catfish Biff’s
Gatto’s – Sausage and Onion
Mellow Mushroom – ?
Adriatico’s – Cheese
Yosick’s (yes the German Village Chocolatier) – Vegetarian
Yosicks’s – ?
Rockmaster Mike’s Bacon Baccahanalia 1.0 (Homemade)
Rockmaster Mike’s Bacon Baccahanalia 2.0
Rotolo’s – Tomato and Garlic
Cowtown – Mediterranean
Rotolo’s – Sausage
Massey’s – Pepperoni
Pizza Primo – Supreme
Rubino’s – Pepperoni
Stoned Pizza – Cheese
Stoned Pizza – Pepperoni
Stoned Pizza – Pickles and Pepperoni
Surly Girl Saloon – Surly Girl Pizza x2
Surly Girl Saloon – Chuckwagon (a breakfast pizza) x3
(Delivered by Amy from SGS)
Panzera’s Pizza – Pepperoni, Mushroom, Onions, Sausage, Banana Peppers x2
High Beck Tavern – Pulled Pork, Beef Brisket, BBQ sauce x2
Northstar Cafe – High Street Veggie x2
Hounddogs – Olives and Feta, Smokin Joe’s Style (Spicy)
Fabian’s – Chicken Rustica
Mama Mimi’s – BBQ Sauce, Pepperoni, Bacon
Belleria – Sausage, Pepperoni, Green Peppers, Onion
DiCarlos – Pepperoni
Enrico’s – Pepperoni, Sausage, Mushroom, Peppers
Angie’s Pizza – Pepperoni

A few pizzas may have have been missed coming through the door at the beginning. I am not sure how many Bono Pizzas arrived. Few pizzas lingered around for long. My official count was 50 pizzas from 27 places. My highest headcount of the night was 62 pizza eating souls although many people came and left during the night. We raised $51 for the Haiku Help Fund.

We made a run at voting this year. However, I should mention some disclaimers. Pizza comes in at various times during the night. Few people could have tried all 50 odd pizzas, it all depends on when one arrives and how quickly a pizza gets eaten. In the case of Bono – those pizzas lasted 8 minutes and were sampled by about 10 people at the most. Our inaugural categories:

Best of Grand Prix
Winner: Dewey’s Buffalo Chicken
Runner Up: High Beck Smokehouse Combo

Best Homemade
Winner: Rockmaster Mike’s Bacon Baccahanalia

Best Topping Combo
Winner: Mama Mimi’s BBQ Bacon
Runner Up: Surly Girl Blue Cheese Cranberry

Best Vegetarian
Winner: Northstar High Street Veggie

The best comment in the voting cards – “Hounddogs Feta and Olives Soooo F**king Good!”

A trend I noticed among the winners … bacon. Bacon is still the new black in Columbus. My favorite was the Hi Beck Smokehouse combo – Brisket, Pulled Pork, BBQ sauce – so “fraking” good. It arrived later in the evening, a few more votes and it would have won two categories.

Taking Pizza to the Next Level, Pizza Box Jenga

Thanks to: Everyone that came, Wild Goose Creative for hosting as well as setting up and tearing down, Dewey’s for donating some pizzas, Surly Girl for donating and delivering pizzas, the Hounddogs delivery guy I forgot to tip because I was multi-tasking, Bill from Bono for making pizzas just for us, Walker Evans and anyone I missed.

For those of you that missed it, listen live – Columbus Foodcast Episode 35

Who: Everyone
What: Bring a Pizza and/or eat pizza
When: March 7th, 6 PM to 8 PM
Where: Wild Goose Creative – 2491 Summit Street – Baja Clintonville
Why: Expand your Columbus pizza knowledge and sample pizzas you did not know about
How: Buy a pizza or make a pizza. If you can not purloin a pie drop by anyway but make a small donation to the Haiku Help Fund
Web: Here – CMH Gourmand and Columbus Underground

To keep track of what is going on for this Gran Prix – check out the current Columbus Underground post – Columbus Underground PGP III

When I was growing up in Columbus every March there was an event a the fairgrounds called Extravaganza. The commerial always ended with a cheesy announcer voice shrieking “ADMISSION IS FREE”. Well – admission is free to PGP but the only cheese we offer is on the pizza.

And for a taste of past Pizza Grand Prix events – see below.

Pizza Grand Prix Uno

Pizza Grand Prix Dos

Come out and join us. When you know you are coming – post here or on Columbus Underground so we can track a rough headcount.

We will have a few freebies, a lot of pizza, drinks are BYOB and this time we will have voting in place to so everyone can support their favorites of the night.

Here is the drill – we expect to have twenty plus types of pizza – the volume depends on how many people show up and what time people walk through the door.

We have napkins, plates, red pepper flakes, parmesan cheese and a pizza cutter. Sample to your hearts content and perhaps your stomachs regret. All are welcome to bring tupperware to take some pizza to go when we wind things down after 8 PM.

Voting will be in these categories:
Best of Grand Prix
Best Homemade
Best Topping Combo
Best Vegetarian

There will be a prize for the best homemade pizza as determined by voting.

We do ask that you ask to have your pizza cut in squares – aka – tavern cut – this helps with the process of pizza sharing. If you are bringing a pizza from your favorite pizza place – bring some extra menus with you – so other people can support your favorite dough slinger in the future. If you are stumped on where to get a pizza from (could this be?) check out my slice of CMH link at the top of the blog.

Hope to see you there – PGP has been one of the favorite Columbus Underground events and Wild Goose Creative is a wonderful place to host a community event.

BE THERE, BE THERE, BE THERE!

Note: More info to come during the week – I have been hampered by haphazard wireless connection crowded coffee shop internet access so posts have been delayed and rushed.

Pictured above is my “swag” from the North American Pizza and Ice Cream Show (NAPICS). This food industry event has called the Columbus Convention Center it’s home since 2004. For a sense of what is offered see the slides in the link below.

Pizza Marketplace slides from the 2008 NAPICS

NAPICS is the only pizza show in the Midwest, it draws over 5000 people each year from Ohio and surrounding states and it attracts companies from around the country.

Here are some interesting pizza points to ponder:

“Ohio has the largest concentration of pizza and ice cream shops per capita of any state in the country”.

“More than one-fourth of the nation’s 63,000 pizzerias are located in Ohio and the five surrounding states”. I believe Columbus has about 450 pizza slingers.

NAPICS also hosts the annual Pizza Pizzazz competition. Winners of this contest receive cash prizes and the opportunity to try out for the US Pizza Team and in turn head to Italy for the World Pizza Championship.

For the last two years I have attended as a member of the “Press” by marking “other” on my ticket application. I could sense the change in the economy based on the types of promotional items offered, the density of the crowd and the topics of the seminars. I scored some good loot last year, this year – not so much. My pass provided admission for two days. Each booth had something to offer including samples of all the pizza, pepperoni, meatballs, sausage, cheeses, sauces, ice cream, desserts and such I could stuff in my stomach. There are also competitions to watch – pizza making, dough tossing, etc.

Here are a few more links of interest.

PMQ – Pizza Magazine: Sporty Slices (about Columbus pizza)

NAPICS

Bono Togo Pizza in the Short North closed quietly in November. The good news is 2009 may see Bono bounce back in Grandview at the corner of Northwest and Chambers.

Bono Togo was tucked away on Russell street in the core of the Short North. The daytime location of Eleni Christina Bakery (among my favorite breads in town) became Bono Pizza at night.

Bill and Peggy Yerkes with some helpers crafted artisan pizzas inspired by Bill’s decades of perfecting his prized pies. In between pushing pizzas in and pulling them out of the oven, Bill would provide lots of commentary to his guests. Peggy treated all of us like family. And if that was not enough, there were crepes, very, very, very good crepes.

The Summer of Bono created some great memories and locked in some fine friendships as late nights outside of Bono flowed into fall (Bear, Colleen, Hungry Woolf, Roland, Drew). It also led to the creation of the “Colleen” Pizza – 15b on some menus. Any food item can be Colleened by adding a fried egg.

Here is some insight into the magic.

The Columbus Underground Bono Post

Hungry Woolf wolfs down Bono

Walker, Anne and Desmond (future mayor of Columbus) go to Bono

Columbus Foodcast interviews Bill and gets the backstory on the Colleen pizza

15B - The Colleen

White Castle and Bono – The Roland Pizza

Yelp on Bono

The End of Bono

In the meantime, Bill has a mobile woodfired pizza oven he created himself. He graciously brought it to the Columbus Underground 7th Anniversary party at Wildgoose Creative. We ate pizzas all night which helped out a bit since the night before we were told about the coming demise of Bono.

Dispatch article on Bill’s Oven

For now, while waiting for the new Bono to open, maybe we will see the mobile oven pop up somewhere. I volunteer my driveway anytime.

Pizza freaks know there are many styles of pizza – some pizzas have stronger claims to fame than others. A few of the better known styles are: New York, Chicago, California, New Haven and Neapolitan. Some lesser known styles are: Detroit, St. Louis, Midwestern, and Columbus. Yes, a case can be to be made for a Columbus style pizza or at least, an appendix about Columbus contributions to the Midwestern style. This may heat up some people, especially many of the east coast transplants in Columbus whining about square cut pizzas and being unable to find a decent triangle slice anywhere.

The history of pizza in the Capital City dates back to 1929. This makes Columbus one of the oldest centers of pizza pie production in the Midwest. Outside of a few east coast cities, pizza did not become common anywhere in the United States until after World War Two.

So what is Columbus style pizza? Square cut (AKA Tavern Cut) for sure, some say this facilitates sharing. The crust is thin, the bottom has a dusting of cornmeal and there is not much of a “ring”/crust at the end for holding your slice. Easy to find examples of Columbus style pizza are Donatos and Massey’s.

This square cut approach is a Midwestern thing – you will find it as far east as Steubenville/Wheeling, WV and as far west as St. Louis. It is pretty common in Chicago. The square cut has been documented in Columbus since at least 1934 (TAT Ristorante) and was locked in as part of the “Columbus style” in 1949 by Massey’s.

Pizza can be placed in Columbus in 1929 at TAT Ristorante. TAT served pizza in Flytown, a not so nice name for the part of town for immigrants and African Americans that was between Spruce Street and Buttles Avenue, west of Goodale Park. Flytown was razed in the 1950′s.

This is the mural of Flytown you can find in the Short North.

Flytown Sign

More background information

Pizza was not on the menu at first, but you could order it at TAT Ristorante di Familia. The restaurant has some menus from the 1930′s which do show pizza as a menu item. TAT was named after the new Transcontinental Air Transport company with used Ford Tri Motor planes and passenger trains to transport people from New York to Los Angeles in 48 hours. The first stop on this journey was in Columbus where travelers left a train and traveled to the new Port Columbus airport to begin the air segment of their trip. TAT was new and exciting. This inspired the name of the new restaurant.

Wikipedia on TAT (airline)

TAT has moved several times since the then. The Corrova family still makes a good pizza pie at their location at James Avenue on the east side. There is a great mural on the wall which maps out the TAT continental route from coast to coast. There are many newspaper articles covering the wall outlining the long history of TAT (restaurant) in Columbus. TAT is the oldest family owned restaurant in the city.

More about TAT on Columbus Foodcast

The next major event was the opening of the first true pizzeria. Looking at old records (thanks to Jim Early from Columbus Restaurant History), in 1951, a restaurant that had pizza in the name was listed in Columbus phone books: “Romero’s Pizzeria” at 1576 West 5th Ave. This marks when a new Italian pizza family started tossing dough in Columbus.

The Massuci family changed their name to Massey and started a chain that was branded as the makers of the “The Cadillac of Pizza”.

Romeo Siri, Guido Casa and the Massey Brothers introduced pizza to Columbus at Romeo’s Italian Restaurant on West Fifth Avenue.

(According to the Massey’s pizza website): In 1949, Jim and Dan Massey opened Columbus’ first pizzeria on East Main Street in Whitehall. The 1950′s saw the rise of some other well known dough slingers.

Thomas Iacono opened his first restaurant on Fifth Avenue in 1952, using his own family recipe brought over from Italy. Tommy’s Pizza features a thin cracker crust that crisps on the bottom when baked. The two Tommy’s locations on Lane Avenue are OSU campus landmarks. In 1954, Rubino’s Pizzeria and Spaghetti opened in Bexley and it retains a cult-like following today. Newspaper columnist and writer Bob Green made Rubino’s famous as he wrote of his memories about growing up in central Ohio.

(Massey’s web site again) “Guido Casa took over Massey’s in 1962, he perfected the special dough recipe that is used today. It’s always baked directly on the hearth with a specially ground cornmeal producing a thin, flavorful crust.”

“In 1971, Guido Casa’s son Philip, stepped in to carry on the tradition. He trademarked Massey’s exclusive Guido Brand pepperoni which is produced right here in Columbus. He also increased the number of pepperoni on a large pizza to 155 pieces.”

Though now operated by cousins of the original owners (Dave and Jim Pallone), Massey’s is still a benchmark for area pizza, with its rectangular slices, liberal herb sprinkling, spicy sausage and pepperoni (still made in Columbus), a good mix of quality cheese with a thin and crispy crust jacked up with a cornmeal dusting.

The 1960′s saw the beginning of another pizza powerhouse, Donatos. The Grote family took Columbus style pizza to the next level and beyond, opening many locations throughout the Midwest. The company was purchased by McDonald’s but after a few years, McDonald’s attempt at McPizza faltered and the Grote family purchased their company back for less than what they were paid originally.

Today Columbus us still takes a big piece of various pizza pie charts. There are over 450 pizzerias in the Columbus Metropolitan area. Columbus is home to NAPICS – North America Pizza and Ice Cream Show which is one of the biggest industry trade events in the world. We are also home to Mama Mimi’s Take and Bake Pizza. In Feb. 2000 Mama Mimi’s Take n Bake Pizza was born. Jeff and Jodi Aufdencamp have worked hard to put Columbus and Mama Mimi’s on the “Pizza World Map” by winning numerous national pizza competitions and awards. I had the pleasure of watching this company grow due to my close proximity to their Clintonville location.

So there you have it, Columbus and our pizza heritage. As for the whole square thing, I have to thank Richard Folk from Massey’s for finding an old article about pizza in Columbus that I could not get a copy of by any others means. Some excerpts from the article are listed below.

Columbus is Square When it Comes to Pizza
By Dan Trittschuh

“according to a survey conducted by the Triad Research Group in Cleveland, 66 percent of Columbus pizza lovers prefer to have their pizza cut into squares, rather than triangular wedges. At most pizza shops throughout the nation, the pieces are cut into wedges. And in neighboring Cleveland, the survey found that 70 percent of pizza consumers preferred wedges over squares.”

After surveying some of Massey’s long-time pizza cooks, Pallone surmised an answer to the mystery of square-cut pizza: “One of the old-timers around here was saying that we always used to serve the pizzas in paper bags, and that the pizza slices might have slid into the bag a little easier if they were cut in squares rather than wedges.”

And some more leisure reading for you:

Wikipedia on Pizza

St. Louis style pizza – Imo’s

Pizza History and Facts

Linda Stradley on the History of Pizza

If you have a passing interest in Pizza and want a list of hot spots – this map is a fun and interesting way to discover the vast array of regional choices in this US of A.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/pizza-maps

Columbus Underground and yours truly are presenting the second Pizza Gran Prix of 2008. We will gather at Bristol Bar with pizza boxes in hand to share a variety of the best pizzas in Columbus – including a few homemade ones. The previous PGP in March had a wonderful turn out.

Who: Anyone that likes pizza.
What: A big pizza party
Where: Bristol Bar is located 123 East 5th Ave (Intersection of North Fourth and East Fifth)
When: October 4th, 6 PM to 8 PM
Why: Why not – it went well the first time
How: A lot of work by Walker Evans from Columbus Underground.

(Above, scene from PGP I)

See the links below for more information and background

Flyer from the Walker Evans Effect

Columbus Underground link for the March 2008 PGP

Current Columbus Underground link for PGP II

Looking for some tips on places to choose from? Check out the Slice of CMH selection on at the top of the blog.

If you can’t make it on the 4th but want to create a do it yourself pizza party, listen to Columbus Foodcast – Episode Seven. Columbus Foodcast is in the Columbus Blogs section of this blog.

As for the day of the 4th, consider going to the Harvest Festival at North Market but eat lightly.