Back on March 28 of this year (2022), I was browsing through the electronic edition of the Tampa Bay Times and landed on an article by one of my favorite Times writers, Sue Carlton, writing in the Local & State section that day. Her subject? Pizza.
She had stumbled on a website with interesting pizza data and must have thought her readers would be as interested in them as she was. She was right, I was. I took away the following details:
Among America's top 15 pizza cities, Tampa is 12th, ahead of New York, which for some reason didn't even make the top 15, but well behind Detroit, which came in first. According to the survey, Carlton reports, "Tampa boasts eight pizza joints for every 100,000 residents, who spend a higher percentage of annual income on pizza than any other city in the top 15. An average cheese pizza here will cost you $8.73--not so thrifty as Nashville at $6.65, but not as pricey as Philly at $9.71."
And we have a lot of pizzerias to pick from in Tampa Bay, one every 1.75 miles in fact, which is "38 % better than the average city" in the study, which also concluded that Tampa Bay has "4.3 independent pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents," 7th best in the country. I wasn't surprised at pizza's popularity, but I was stunned that Tampa Bay produced pies that anyone ate with relish. So to speak.
When we moved to Florida from New Jersey in April 2006, we were in fact horribly disappointed by the pizza then available everywhere in our part of Tampa Bay. It was a grotesque imitation of our once-a-week favorite meal at Newton Pizza on the Newton-Sparta Road in Sussex County, NJ. Even in the sticks, you got a good pie in NJ. What a comfort! We had no idea what was waiting for us.
It was crazy, but what seemed like regular, normal, everyday Florida folks believed Dominos and Papa Johns, Little Caesars and Marcos made perfectly fine pies, real Italian pizza that they ordered with barbecue sauce or Hawaiian pineapple or Mexican taco "toppings," as the locals called these hybrid impostors.
There were only a handful of small, neighborhood pizza joints in our part of Tampa Bay--and they were better, more comfortable to us Italians from Northern New Jersey, home of the pizza-chomping Sopranos on HBO. But none of the small pizzerias or the big chain delivery stores passed the Jersey Taste Test. Not a one.
I'm tempted to conclude however that gradually, after twenty long years of bad Tampa Bay pizzas, the pies have gotten better. I would really like to believe that, and it is possible of course that the pies really have improved, but I suspect, what mortification!, that the pies are just as bad as they ever were--and all that has changed are my formerly high standards that have gotten lower and lower.
It's a pity, but now when we go to New Jersey and have a pizza, it's no longer the gold standard. I actually find myself missing my Tampa counterfeits.
Pizza just ain't what it used to be. Sob.
Addendum:
August 10, 2022. Tampa Bay Times: Domino's Falls in Italy
by Giulia Morpurgo and Antonio Vanuzzo
Two writers for the Bloomberg News Service reported that Domino's Pizza has closed its 29 branches in Italy after seven years of trying to get a foothold in the Land of Pizza. What a relief.
