The server delivered the metal pizza trays to the table and they landed with a gentle yet audible thud.
This was not your warehouse store slice.
NYPD New York Pizza Department (187 N. Park Ave., nypizzadepartment.com) near the University of Arizona serves jumbo New York-style slices that overflow the pizza tin.
They are big enough for two and the perfect size for the classic New York fold; bend in half vertically so that every bite delivers a twofer — twice as much of the tomatoey sauce and stretchy mozzarella cheese and whatever toppings you decide to add.
On a recent Tuesday just as the lunch rush was starting, we opted for sliced fennel-forward Italian sausage that contrasted nicely with the soft in the middle crust with its crispy yet still pliable outer ring that cracked but didn’t break with the fold.
“It’s almost as big as a small pie,” says owner Mark Fontana, the Buffalo native and former UA football player (1987-89 during the Dick Tomey era) who opened the original NYPD on North Wilmot Road in 2011; this second location on North Park Avenue opened last October.
Slices here run a couple bucks more than the Tucson average of $4.50-$6, but NYPD also boasts the biggest slice among the small but growing handful of Tucson pizzerias that offer all-day pizza by the slice.
New York is all about the slice with slice joints located on every other street corner in some of the city’s more pizza-centric neighborhoods.
But it’s a rarity in Tucson. Plenty of pizzerias offer lunchtime slice deals, but we could only find a dozen that offer all-day slices and three of those — Upper Crust Pizza, Arizona Pizza Company and Ugly But Honest — have the same owner.
Each of these restaurants is bringing its own interpretation of New York-style pizza, from the French-inspired vegetarian slice at Los Olivos in Menlo Park to the light and crispy Sicilian-style at Brooklyn Pizza Company on North Fourth Avenue.
For those not in the know, the first rule of New York style pizza is the thin crust: crispy on the edges and softer in the center to allow for the ideal fold.
Slices are large, maybe not as big as Fontana’s 24-inch pie cut in six slices, but somewhere in that neighborhood.
A jumbo slice with pepperoni from NYPD, 187 N. Park Ave. Jumbo slices are $7.38 with an additional charge of $1.28 for regular toppings, $1.58 for premium and $2.08 for extra premium.
The pies are premade and each slice reheated to order, which adds that extra crisp to the crust. Most pizzerias premake cheese pies and then add the toppings to order. At $1-plus per, the price can add up, which is why we appreciate the joints that offer specialty slices for around a buck more than a regular.
Over a two-week span beginning in late May, we ate our way through Tucson’s slice joints, visiting seven pizzerias along the streetcar route, a couple adjacent to it, and Tucson’s slice OG on the far east side.
We wish we could say that we had some big philosophical or culinary goal in mind, but truthfully, it all started with an office debate sparked when a coworker gushed about the merits of a chain pizzeria. Most of us agreed that restaurant’s pizza tasted like eating cardboard.
One thing led to another and here we are, loosening up our stretchy pants and coming out of our pizza coma to tell you the story of Tucson’s emerging “slice town.”
The OG of the Tucson slice
New York Pizza on Broadway (8771 E. Broadway, newyorkpizzaonbroadway.com) has sold pizza by the slice since it opened in 1976 in a retail space that looks today like we expect it looked 49 years ago. Long tables draped with red-checkered tablecloths. Pinball machines against a small wall next to the counter.
New York Pizza on Broadway. We opted for ground beef and mushrooms on a slice. The thin crust is a star.
The addition of large flat-screen TVs came years later when the 1980s and ‘90s heralded in the sports bar era. On a recent midweek afternoon, long after the lunch crowd had dispersed, the counter man who goes by the name Moose had three TVs tuned to movies, one to soccer; the volume was off on all but the one showing “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
New York Pizza’s slice menu is a build-your own model; you start with a large slice of cheese and add your own toppings from a list that includes classic pizza meats — Italian sausage, pepperoni, ham, ground beef and bacon — and an assortment of veg — mushrooms, green peppers, onions, black olives, green chiles and jalapeños.
The toppings are right out of the ‘70s, from the metallic canned mushrooms to the not-too-spicy jalapeño that we paired with canned sliced black olives. We opted for ground beef and those mushrooms on a second slice.
New York Pizza’s thin crust is a star here. You get that initial crunch followed by a terrific chew that took us back to those simple days when going out for pizza was a family night on the town.
Dustin Eiserman, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Samantha, said the restaurant he and his wife took over two years ago is a cornerstone of its east-side neighborhood. Customers are on a first-name basis with longtime employees Moose and Rey, and Javon, who the Eisermans brought in as general manager.
The couple are the restaurant’s fourth owners.
And then there were three
New York native Tony Vaccaro joined the Tucson slice game in 1996 when he opened Brooklyn Pizza Company (534 N. Fourth Ave.; brooklynpizzacompany.com). His slice starts with the basic cheese, which you can dress up with a plethora of inventive toppings including artichoke hearts, feta cheese, spinach, ricotta, meatballs, sausage or pepperoni and chicken.
Deep dish slice, from Brooklyn Pizza Company: Pillowy soft and chewy crust, with crispy edges, and a cheesy middle.
He also offers a house deep dish Sicilian pizza with the caveat “when available”; that option tends to go fast and after trying it, we can see why. The thick crust is what pizza dreams are made of: pillowy soft and chewy, with crispy edges. The cheese sits in the middle, creating a chewy crater that gives way to puffy edges that create little air pockets that pop when you bite into them.
Brooklyn hand-tosses all its pies, which are baked in a solar-powered oven.
No Anchovies (870 E. University Blvd. in Main Gate Square, noanchoviesaz.com) started life as a slice-only joint in 1997; owner Nelson Seamans only sold slices and only took cash.
That changed as the years went by and Seamans expanded the menu and the footprint of the former ballet studio; in 2017 he added 6,000 square feet to the original 4,000 when he built an upper floor with a full bar and sound system. When the sun goes down, the upstairs transforms into the pulsating nightclub The Spot, featuring DJs, dancing and flashing lights.
But we’re all in for the No Cho slice, from the pepperoni that we sometimes have to dab with a napkin to soak up the excess oil, to the mildly spicy Hot Wing Slice, made with chicken marinated in a Buffalo wing sauce and drizzled with bleu cheese and ranch dressing.
What we love best about No Cho is the crust. The slice goes into the hot pizza oven and comes out with a little extra crunch and heft that holds up to any amount of toppings.
Take a ride on the streetcar
New Yorkers have the subway to get around; we have the streetcar, which runs from the U of A to Mercado San Agustín in Menlo Park.
That’s where we discovered Travis Evans manning the ovens and stretching the dough at Whole Slvce Pizza (160 S. Avenida del Convento, wholeslvcepizza.com), the year-old hole-in-the-wall grab ‘n go pizzeria he co-owns with Tucson businessman Ari Shapiro.
If you ask him, Evans will tell you the reason he and Shapiro took the plunge to open another pizzeria — they are partners in Falora Pizza on East Broadway that Shapiro opened in 2013 — is that Evans missed the New York slice after spending 14 years in the Big Apple.
But Evans ups the ante on that model, offering classic pepperoni alongside a deluxe with sausage, onions and bell peppers, and a veggie slice topped with kale, cremini mushrooms and pesto.
Our favorite was a sauce-less cheese pizza with mozzarella, creamy dots of ricotta and salty parmesan seasoned with lemon zest and black pepper. It had an elegant comfort-food aesthetic that was honestly addicting.
TOP: Quetzalcoatl Lora, owner of Los Olivos, 937 W. Congress St., adds pepperoni slices to a pie. BOTTOM, LEFT: The vegetarian slice at Los Olivos, 937 W. Congress St., has roasted zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, eggplant, bell peppers and basil. The restaurant’s French-trained chef incorporates his background, and this slice is ratatouille on a crust. BOTTOM, MIDDLE: The white pizza slice at Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen, 312 E. Congress St., has garlic-infused extra virgin olive oil, garlic, East Coast blend mozzarella cheese and fresh herbs. BOTTOM, RIGHT: The elote — Mexican roasted street corn — slice at Empire Pizza, 137 E. Congress St. If someone were to ask what Tucson pizza tastes like, this is it.
A few blocks from the Mercado, French-trained chef Quetzalcoatl Lora infuses his French background into Italian pizzas at his 12-year-old restaurant Los Olivos (937 W. Congress St., orderlosolivos.com).
Lora’s early cooking experience came at a Florida French restaurant, where he learned to make ratatouille, the French Provençal dish of stewed vegetables including eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots and crushed tomatoes. It’s seasoned with dried basil and parsley, garlic cloves and onion.
When he was thinking about a vegetarian pizza for his menu, he remembered the ratatouille and how much he loved it.
“I was like, why not,” he recalled, sitting in the restaurant’s small dining room.
Although it’s not spelled out on the menu, his vegetarian pizza is actually ratatouille on a pizza crust. You can taste the basil and parsley as you bite into the chewy crust and al dente vegetables: carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, green bell peppers and tomatoes.
The vegetarian slice at Los Olivos, 937 W. Congress St., has roasted zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, eggplant, bell peppers and basil. The restaurant’s French-trained chef incorporates his background, and this slice is ratatouille on a crust.
Lora also uses olives in several pies — the restaurant’s name translates to “The Olive Trees” — including the Los Olivos Pizza with green olives, tomato, artichoke and basil.
Pizza by day and night downtown
Empire Pizza (137 E. Congress St., empire.pizza) brought the Brooklyn-style slice to the downtown entertainment district in 2009 and for the next 15 years, they were the only downtown slice game for office workers grabbing a convenient lunch and for downtown bar-hoppers looking for a bite to soak up that last call.
Early last year, the venerable slice joint got some company when Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen (312 E. Congress St., tucsonjaimes.com) opened up a couple of blocks away.
Jaime’s is chef-owner Gabriel Moreno’s way of building on his family’s culinary legacy in Tucson. His grandfather, Jaime, was a fixture on North Fourth Avenue for years, first with his Jaime’s Mexican Favorites restaurant and later with Jaime’s Bar and Grill and Jet Market. While Jaime focused on Mexican food, Moreno brings his lifelong love and passion for pizza, something inspired when he was a tween watching Tony Vaccaro and his Brooklyn Pizza team toss pies in the space that used to belong to his grandfather.
The white pizza slice at Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen, 312 E. Congress St., has garlic-infused extra virgin olive oil, garlic, East Coast blend mozzarella cheese and fresh herbs.
While Empire Pizza offers traditional Brooklyn style slices, big wedges of the classic pepperoni and cheese, Jaime’s adds a craft-pizza twist to everything it does, from the classic cheese slice — made with an East Coast shredded mozzarella blend and housemade scratch sauce that is available all day — to the carefully crafted Old World, with hand-pulled chewy mozzarella and hand-crushed tomato drizzled with a sublime garlic-infused extra virgin olive oil; and a white cheese slice featuring savory ricotta and fresh herbs.
The thrill of Empire is its so-called “display slice” from the specialty pies menu. You can request a specialty slice and if it’s in the display, you luck out; if not, well ...
On a recent weekday, the display slice featured Empire’s chicken tikka masala, a creation inspired by a collaboration last summer with Saffron Indian Bistro, and its super popular elote — which is literally the classic Mexican roasted street corn with cotija cheese and cilantro, drizzled with a chipotle mayo served atop a chewy, charred pizza crust. The tikka masala was a bit disappointing; the classic Indian spices were only evident in the chicken so the rest of the pie tasted like an ordinary cheese pizza.
But that elote ...
The elote — Mexican roasted street corn — slice at Empire Pizza, 137 E. Congress St. If someone were to ask what Tucson pizza tastes like, this is it.
It would not be hyperbole to call it life-altering, at least in the pizza-verse. You bite into it and you get the salty from the cojita cheese, the classic mozzarella tug, the crunch of the roasted corn and creamy exclamation of the mayo. If someone were to ask what Tucson pizza tasted like, this is it.
West University’s “Time”-less tradition
Perhaps there’s something in the water or the purity of its ingredients, or maybe it’s the deck oven blazing hot at 600-plus degrees that can multitask bread and pastries and those sinfully big cookies in the entryway display case while crisping up a 20-inch pizza to bubbly perfection. But one thing we know for certain: Time Market (444 E. University Blvd., timemarket.xyz) in the West University neighborhood is creating pizza magic.
Time Market checks all our slice boxes starting with the gorgeously charred crust that has a perfect balance of crunch and chew and a flavor reminiscent of artisan bread, and the tomato sauce with its fresh-crushed aesthetic that doesn’t get lost in a blanket of melty cheese and generous toppings.
Time Market invites you to think beyond the classic cheese and pepperoni with a rotating array of specialty slices including the delicate Mortadella with housemade mozzarella and the Caramel Heart that pairs caramelized onions with artichoke hearts and spinach and adds a creaminess with the housemade ricotta.
We tried the Shitake with its walnut and caramelized onion puree that we mistook for sausage until we took that first bite and found ourself clamping down on what felt like air. But the sweetness of the puree contrasted nicely with the earthiness of the meaty shitakes.
Where ugly meets honest in Five Points
If you like your pizza with a bit of nostalgia and a strong sense of neighborhood history, you’ll love the months-old Honest But Ugly Pizza and Beer Garden (733 S. Stone Ave., uglybuthonestpizza.com) on the corner of South Stone and South Sixth avenues in Armory Park’s storied Five Points area.
Ugly But Honest Pizza and Beer Garden opened in February at the former Clyde Wanslee Auto Sales at the Five Points intersection. The pizzeria took its name from a sign on the corner that summed up Wanslee’s business motto and the cars he sold: Ugly But Honest.
The building sits at the intersection of the historic Barrio Viejo, Barrio Santa Rosa, Barrio Santa Rita and Armory Park and had been home for 85 years to Clyde Wanslee’s auto sales and service station, which closed in 2018.
Wanslee, who died in 1984 at the age of 69, opened the business in 1933 and his stepson kept it going for 60 of those years before selling the iconic property. The “Ugly But Honest” sign still standing on the Sixth Avenue side of the corner summed up Wanslee’s business motto and gained national recognition after appearing in a few movies.
The folks behind Tucson’s popular Upper Crust Pizza (1909 E. Grant Road, uppercrustpizzatucson.com) and Arizona Pizza Company (4955 N. Sabino Canyon Road, azpizzacompany.com) decided to keep that iconic sign and pay homage to the building’s history when they opened Ugly But Honest Pizza in February.
They created a covered dining area cooled by misters in the space that once served as a small parking lot and a bar in the area where Wanslee stood in those 1950s-’60s black-and-white advertisements that ran in local newspapers. The pizza kitchen takes up the former auto service area and two small tables fill the space that once served as a sales office.
You can grab a slice, big enough for two, and sit at the bar and try to guess which way the traffic at the five-way stop will go. Slices come with a soft drink that you can sub out for a beer for a couple more bucks.
On a recent weekend afternoon visit, we found ourselves shaking on some garlic salt to add a little spice to the slice, which we chalked up to our timing — too late for lunch, too early for dinner.
