Caliente Opens at Heinz Field & a New East End Pizza Option
I mean Acrisure Stadium, but come on, who's calling it that.
Hi pizza fans!
I will not relitigate the renaming of Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium as Virginia Montanez has expertly done that here. If you like reading about the going-ons of Pittsburgh I suggest you check out her Substack, Breathing Room. Anyways, it’s silly but when it opens for the Steelers game on Saturday there will be a new pizza shop installed: Caliente.
Hut Hut Hike - Caliente Pizza & Drafthouse Scores Touchdown by Opening in Acrisure Stadium
Caliente is setting up shop inside the stadium at three different areas around the stadium. What better way to enjoy a football game than with a greasy slice of pizza? A cold drink, perhaps. According to this WPXI article they will be offering slices of cheese, pepperoni and sausage. Not sure if they’ll have any of their gourmet or seasonal pizzas, but given the environment I would guess they’re keeping it simple.
Making pizza for a takeout or at a restaurant has its own challenge and bottlenecks. Making pizza for an entire football stadium? It’s a whole different game. Quality gives way to speed. Simplicity and efficiency matter the most. Not to mention you have to consider that people will be eating your food sans table. Without anything to rest your pizza on, how do you deliver your product?
Each year stadiums roll out their food options as if anyone has invented a better type of hotdog. Food evolves to be more gourmet, artisan, but do you want sushi or Korean BBQ wings while you’re freezing in the stands trying to chug a 48oz beer before it turns to slush? Or do you simply want a hotdog? The perfect food vessel for stadiums.
I’ll be interested to hear how Caliente delivers at the stadium. Slice On Broadway was able to scale appropriately for their tenure at PNC Park thanks to Rico’s undying passion for consistency and quality. I was able to get a piping hot whole pie from Slice On Broadway during a game that tasted as good as one of his standard shops.
And what is Caliente without their signature pies? If they aren’t serving up their Detroit, Grandma or one of their many award winning pizza, is it really a Caliente location? If you check out the Caliente location in the stadium let me know how it goes.
A Pizza Shop Inside a Grocery Store
I’ll be honest, I love grocery shopping. I enjoy wandering around looking at the rainbow of boxes and assortment of items on the shelf. I can peruse toothpaste for hours if you let me. Luckily, between my slow and meandering visits to the Whole Foods in East Liberty I can stop for some pizza.
You can’t talk about this new Whole Foods without first acknowledging how Penn Plaza was demolished in 2016 displacing 200 residents to make way for this huge structure. While new affordable housing under construction in the area it softens the blow, but East Liberty has undergone tremendous change in the past decade. All this to say it’s worth thinking about when we say Pittsburgh is a “most livable city” you might want to ask “livable for who?”
Back to pizza - the new glossy Whole Foods features a few pizza ovens churning out freshly made pizzas at a high frequency. They have seasonal slices. They have your plain cheese. They have the fan-favorite pepperoni. BBQ Chicken? You know it.
My family stopped into Whole Foods to check it out and decided to grab a pizza. For $15 you get an incredibly large pizza that more than fed our family of three (which includes a guy that wrote a book about pizza). Plus, Charlie liked it.
Not a bad spot for a casual pizza. The sauce was tangy, fresh, not too sweat. Crust was a little flat, but overall inoffensive. Slices go down smooth and easy. Perfect appetizer to a little grocery shopping.
Pizza Photo of the Week - My Ooni Pie
I made this pizza in my Ooni and gotta say I’m pretty proud with its composition. I sometimes struggle to get a round pie, but everything came together with this one. Looks good, tastes better.
Wow! I feel like this newsletter was grouchy? Not sure what has gotten into me, but I’m sure a few more slices of pizza will help. As of this writing I am scheduled to have pizza three times in four days. Could that be too much pizza…
Thanks for reading and I hope I provided even a little bit of pizza insight for you. Don’t hesitate to share this with your pizza pals.
Pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist