Iconic corner pizzerias are closing or raising prices past the point of no return, while Instagram-friendly pizza joints with 45-minute waits pack the same neighborhoods. Did we do this to ourselves?
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Add your commentBorn and raised in Bensonhurst. My uncle had a slice joint on 86th Street for 22 years. You know what killed it? Not Instagram. It was the rent going from $3,200 to $11,000 a month in six years. You can blame foodies all you want but when your landlord triples your lease because a fancy cocktail bar moved in next door, no amount of loyal regulars eating $1.50 slices is gonna save you. Get the villain right.
Bad pizza?? BAD PIZZA?? Di Fara. Patsy's. Totonno's. Those places were making dollar slices and they were EXTRAORDINARY. The problem isn't that New Yorkers have taste now, it's that they confused "expensive" with "good." Some 26-year-old from Connecticut who went to culinary school for one semester put burrata on a pizza and suddenly everyone acts like they discovered fire.
Hold on — Lombardi's opened in 1905 but they sold whole pies, not slices. The individual slice concept didn't really take off until the 1940s and 50s when pizzerias in Brooklyn started catering to lunch crowds. And a cent a slice in 1905? That math doesn't work either. I love the passion but please don't invent history to win an argument on the internet, it undermines the very real point about affordability.
My theory that nobody wants to hear: the pizza influencer industry is single-handedly responsible. There is literally a guy on YouTube with 800,000 subscribers who rates NYC slices and ever since he blew up, every place he visits raises prices within six months. I have seen it happen THREE TIMES with spots in my neighborhood in Astoria. Viral attention is a death sentence for affordability.
Honestly? Yes. We absolutely did this to ourselves. Every time my coworkers drag me to some place in the West Village where the pizza comes on a wooden board and has HONEY drizzled on it I die a little inside. The dollar slice existed because New Yorkers DEMANDED value. We stopped demanding it.
i just want to say that the best pizza in new york city right now is still like $3.50 at the place on junction blvd in jackson heights and nobody talks about it because theres no aesthetic lighting and the guy behind the counter doesnt have a tattoo sleeve. just saying.
fun fact: the original NYC pizza slice was literally invented as a cheap working class food. the whole POINT was accessibility. when you turn it into an "experience" with a curated wine list you have betrayed everything it stood for. full stop.
I moved here from Ohio four years ago and I genuinely did not understand what the big deal was until I had a proper, greasy, foldable New York slice from this tiny place on Dyckman Street. It cost $2.75 and it was the single best thing I have ever eaten. I have been to Roberta's, I have been to Una Pizza Napoletana, I've waited in those lines. None of it touched that slice. I get it now. I fully get it.
Nope. Hard disagree. Blaming regular New Yorkers for "chasing trends" ignores that wages have been stagnant for a decade while costs exploded. People eating a $7 slice aren't the enemy. The enemy is a tax and zoning system that makes it nearly impossible to run a small food business without selling out or shutting down.
I want to push back on the landlord excuse a little — and I know I'm going to get yelled at for this. Yes, rents are insane. But I've also watched corner pizzerias refuse to update their equipment, refuse to train staff properly, and coast on decades-old reputations while serving mediocre food. Some of these places weren't closed by gentrification. They were closed by complacency. The artisan spots showed up and actually tried harder. That's the uncomfortable truth.
The dollar slice peaked in 1994, stayed reasonable through maybe 2015, and has been a slow bleed since. What gets me is that the actual recipe hasn't changed — flour, water, yeast, tomato, mozzarella. Those ingredients did not get $5 more expensive per slice. The markup is pure vibes and I am tired of paying for vibes.
Can someone explain to me why we're blaming customers for having choices? If a new pizza place opens and people want to go there, that's... how markets work? Nobody is obligated to eat bad pizza out of nostalgia.
the dollar slice has been dying since like 2008 lol this isnt new. i remember my dad complaining about it when slices went to $2. now its $4-5 and people act like the apocalypse happened. its called inflation. it happens everywhere. calm down.
Actually the true original New York dollar slice was invented by Lombardi's in 1905 and was specifically priced at one cent per slice for immigrants. So this tradition of cheap pizza goes back over 100 years and to see it disappear is genuinely heartbreaking from a historical standpoint.
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