Tavern-style pizza

Tavern-style pizza is a type of pizza that has both a thin crust firm enough to have a noticeable crunch and slices cut into squares, as opposed to wedges.^[1][2][3]

Tavern-style thin-crust pizza

Characteristics

Although regional styles can vary, tavern-style pizza across the Midwestern United States typically have a crispy and thin crust.^[1] In Milwaukee, this is referred to as a "cracker" crust;^[4] crusts in Minnesota tend to be a bit softer.^[5] Unlike hand-tossed pizzas common on the east coast of the United States or in Italy, the dough is rolled out before baking.^[6]

Prior to cooking, the crust is topped with a seasoned tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings like sausage. Immediately prior to service, the pizzas are cut into squares instead of the classic triangle.^[1]

Regional varieties

See also: St. Louis–style pizza and Minnesota-style pizza

History

Purpose

The name "tavern-style" comes from how the pizzas were originally served in taverns. According to at least one origin story, the pizza tempted customers into lingering at the establishment, at which point they would be more likely to order more alcohol. Other bars might serve peanuts or other salty snacks for the same purpose.^[7][6]

According to one narrative, the pizza's signature square slices were created so that a customer could hold that in one hand and a beer in the other.^[7] Another theory is that they made it possible for taverns without plates to instead set the pizza on napkins.^[6][8]

Creation

Claims to originating the style in the 1930s and 1940s have come from residents of Milwaukee^[9][10][11] and of Chicago.^[1][12][13]

Milwaukee's claim dates to a Third Ward restaurant named the Caradaro Club, which opened in 1945. Their idea was to combine Sicilian pizza's rectangle slices with Neapolitan pizza's thin crust.^[9] Sources variously date Chicago's claim to the 1930s^[14] or between 1946 and 1950, when a number of restaurants started making recognizably tavern-style pizza.^[15] If the latter, one contender is Vito & Nick’s Pizzeria, which opened as a bar called Vito’s Tavern in 1920. They claim to have served their first tavern pizza in 1946 after one of their owners got the idea while serving in the military.^[15] Another is the Home Run Inn in South Lawndale, which opened in 1947.^[16][17] Chicago reporter Monica Eng has identified at least four additional restaurants which could have originated the style.^[15]

Sales

Tavern-style pizza is commonly found in restaurants across much of the Midwestern United States.^[16] Its popularity widened across the United States in the 2020s.^[12] The expansion included tavern-style releases from the US restaurant chains Pizza Hut^[18] and Domino's,^[19] in addition to the Tombstone frozen pizza brand.^[20]

A number of sources have said that tavern-style pizza outsells deep-dish pizza in Chicago. According to 2013 Grubhub data and the company Chicago Pizza Tours, thin-crust pizza outsells the more widely known deep-dish style among locals, with GrubHub stating that deep-dish comprises only 9% of its pizza deliveries.^[21][22] In response, Technomics food industry researcher Darren Tristano questioned GrubHub's conclusion on the basis of the delivery service's user demographics, saying that its younger users cannot afford deep-dish pizza, while NPR noted that the data would not include information on two particular chains specializing in the style (though with just 20 restaurants in the city of 2.7 million) that are not on GrubHub.^[21] In 2020 COVID-affected data, Yelp also found that thin-crust pizza was more popular in Chicago.^[6] However, Food & Wine magazine spoke to multiple Chicago pizzerias in 2024 whose sales of the two styles of pizza were evenly split.^[7]