Pepperoni pie from Donatos. | Donatos
For most people living in Columbus or anywhere in central Ohio, thin-crust and square-cut pizza is simply pizza. The pies they grew up on need not be defined or named, but for clarity’s sake, let’s call it “Columbus style.” It may not be as well-known as pizzas from Chicago, New York, or even New Haven, but the local style has fervent and loyal followers. It regularly outpaces other cities on national best pizza lists, visitors can eat pizza by the slice all over town, and the long and legendary history gives the city a pizza cred as deep as its peers.
Local pizza stands out in several ways. Columbus pizza makers roll their dough thin and dock it with a dough docker, creating small holes that prevent bubbling in the oven. Most pies are dusted with cornmeal to prevent sticking to the stone ovens; according to most pizza makers in the city, the stone bottoms of the ovens are crucial for even heat distribution, and the porous material absorbs moisture, providing a crispy crust. The dough is topped with a sweet sauce and balanced by a blend of provolone cheese that goes edge to edge, along with, ideally, pepperoni. Pies arrive at the table cut into “squares,” though in reality they are often closer to rectangles.
These factors combine to create a look and feel that is instantly recognizable. But Columbus style pizza isn’t popular just because of its structure; it’s also relatively affordable. A pie costs around $20, as opposed to pies that can easily start at $30 in cities like Los Angeles and New York. This makes Columbus pizza accessible to loyal student sports fans in the city, who often enjoy nationally ranked and locally beloved teams like the Ohio State Buckeyes with pizza deals on game day. When the hugely popular team plays against rival Michigan, everything is on deck at the pizzerias.
Pizza “is part of this city’s culture,” says Jim Ellison, author of Columbus Pizza: A Slice of History. “There are three things you can count on people talking to you about in Columbus: the weather, the state of Ohio – especially the football – and pizza.”
And the style is gaining popularity beyond the city limits, appearing on menus in the Midwest. If you’re not familiar with Columbus pizza yet, you might be soon.
Like so many American pizza styles, Columbus style pizza begins with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the region. Tat Ristorante Di Famiglia set the trend in 1929, opening its doors in a neighborhood once called Flytown because of its proximity to the city’s airport (though Tat has bounced around a bit during its nearly 100-year tenure). The restaurant served pizza as a light snack or appetizer, which was common at the time.
Decades later, Jimmy Massey and Romeo Siri opened Romeo’s, the first true pizzeria in the city. Their inspiration was likely twofold, says Ellison. Siri was a wine salesman and may have seen how popular pizza pies were while delivering to Tat. Meanwhile, Massey was a baker in Chicago, where tavern-style pizza, carefully cut into easy-to-eat rectangles, was becoming popular. “You have to think at some point he was in a bar in Chicago and said: ‘Hey, I like this square cut. It’s easier to share,'” Ellison says. “They’re slightly different styles, but they’re definitely in the same family.”
While Chicago developed several pizza styles, ranging from the square-cut tavern style that Massey encountered to the thick deep-dish pies tourists associate with the city, Columbus stuck with thin crust. When it comes to deep dish or thicker crust, “I don’t know if people really go for that. It’s so filling and kind of rich,” says Tom Yannarino, second-generation owner of Terita’s Pizzeria. What people prefer, at least at Terita’s, are thin pies made from a recipe that hasn’t changed much since Yannarino’s father opened the shop in 1959.
Whether the slice is called tavern, party cut, or square, the shape is an important element of what makes Columbus style pizza, but the toppings are just as crucial.
The first pizzerias in Columbus primarily received cheese (often provolone) and other toppings from DiPaolo Foods, an Italian grocery store that turned into a food distributor (now operated under the name RDP). The longtime saleswoman did more than just sell goods; she influenced and standardized the way pizza was made in the region and supported emerging businesses. Richie DiPaolo began making and selling cardboard boxes to make pizzas easier to transport, and he worked with Vlasic to put pre-sliced peppers in jars, a common pizza topping.
But the most popular topping is pepperoni, specifically the amount of it. Pizzerias take pride in how many slices they can fit on each pie. Massey’s, which Jimmy opened a few years after Romeo’s, can boast 155 pepperoni slices on a large pie, while Donatos, a local chain, fits 100. The sausage casings from the Old World, which curl in the heat of the oven, make the pepperoni cups of fat shrink. Many local pizzerias’ menus note the name of their sausage supplier – Ezzo Sausage Co. – another Columbus family business.
At every level, family businesses drive Columbus style pizza. At Terita’s, Yannarino is loading up his son, representing the third generation of the business, to manage the pizzeria’s social media. At Minelli’s, Jeff Ferelli inherits the shop his father opened in 1967, and Jeff’s twin daughters, Kaci and Kelly, join the family business after graduating from Ohio State. Massey’s, which has franchised and expanded to 15 locations, is still a family business, though managed by another family after Jimmy Massey sold the company to his longtime employee Guido Casa.
Jim Grote, the man behind Donatos, didn’t invent the crispy crust and edge-to-edge toppings that Columbus loves, but he “certainly made them popular, not just here, but elsewhere,” says Bob Vitale, a food reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. Today, the chain has over 170 locations in 12 states.
The story of Donatos begins like many other pizzerias in Columbus. Grote bought the pizzeria in 1963 with a loan from his family. His parents made the sausage, his mother made the dough, and his kids worked in the shop. At one point, the pizzeria was located right across from the family’s house, and customers waited for their pizzas in the family’s home.
But Grote had bigger ambitions. He was obsessed with consistency – he weighed every pie and sought tools to help achieve efficiency in the pizzeria. Later, Donatos transitioned from traditional deck ovens to conveyor belt ovens for greater consistency. One of his early inventions, the Peppamatic, sliced pepperoni to a constant thickness and placed the slices evenly on the pie, from edge to edge.
Grote even trademarked the marketing phrase “edge to edge” and took Pizza Hut to court in 1996 when they launched a pizza campaign called “The Edge.” Donatos won a $5 million settlement for copyright infringement. A few years later, Donatos had a new showdown with a major fast-food chain. McDonald’s bought the chain in an attempt to bring pizza to its tables. The deal didn’t work out as planned for either party, and the Grotes bought back Donatos in 2003. But ultimately, Grote found a compatible corporate partner, Red Robin, which serves Donatos pizza at over 260 locations, helping Columbus style pizza reach a larger audience. Donatos even recently partnered with the restaurant robotics company Appetronix to open a fully automated pizza restaurant at John Glenn Columbus International Airport.
Ellison likens Donatos to the Bud Light of Columbus style pizza. This is not an insult. Every brewer knows “how hard it is for the beer to come out the same way every time,” says Ellison. The same goes for pizza.
While Donatos thrives, Ellison worries that traditional Columbus style pizza is a “endangered species.” Many of the family pizzerias opened in the ’50s and ’60s have closed their doors or shuttered completely. It’s hard to sustain a family business into the second or third generation.
But pizzerias are still opening all over the city, and Columbus is still a pizza town. It’s just evolving. Vitale points to new pizzerias that include influences from around the world, reflecting the diverse population of Columbus and the growing culinary scene. There’s Paneer tikka masala pizza at Moon Pizza and chicken shawarma pie at Auzy’s Pizza & Chicken. Their pies may be the ones to feed the future generations of proud, pizza-loving Ohioans.