How did you celebrate National Pizza Day?
February 9th was National Pizza Day here in the United States, let's take a look at how pizza was celebrated across the nation.
For some people, every day is National Pizza Day much like every day is Christmas Day. Though, having an isolated day dedicated to a specific act is great, the real purpose is to inspire you to honor that spirit throughout the year. In this household we hold pizza in high regard, honoring its status and eating it often. We craft pizza from scratch, read pizza books and hardly go longer than a week before eating pizza.
But on National Pizza Day everyone gets in on the fun. On February 9th we’re all pizza journalists. People that carefully bite into a pizza, examine the crust and really think about what makes pizza a pizza. I guess that sounds a little obnoxious when I write it out that way, but no one said being a pizza journalist was all charm!
On the week of National Pizza Day, pizzerias across the country are donating pizzas to local food shelters to give back to the community. This year, according to the Slice Out Hunger map, there were participating pizzerias in nearly all the states, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. In the Pittsburgh area the following pizza shops pitched in and donated to a local shelter:
Large Plain in the North Hills
Iron Born in the Strip
Caliente Pizza and Draft House
Primanti Brother’s
18th Street Pizza in Mount Lebanon
Truss Brewing Company in Pleasant Hills
Kudos to these pizza shops for making a difference on National Pizza Day. In a lot of ways pizza is a universal food. For most people it’s so easy to come by - whether you’re ordering a pie from your local pizzeria, grabbing a $5 box from Little Caesar’s or getting a frozen DiGornio. It’s hard to imagine a world where you can’t summon a pizza to your side in a snap of a fingers. Unfortunately, for some people that’s a reality. Slice Out Hunger dedicates themselves to fight food insecurity across the country with pizza-related events. Read more about their cause here.
They Make A Lot of Kids Books About Pizza
My daughter’s school put on a bash for National Pizza Day and here are the selection of books she took to school with her. All pizza related! All featuring different animals figuring out what pizza is!
This goes to show that pizza is a universal food. It goes beyond humanity and seeps into the wild world of the animal kingdom where even cats and alligators crave pizza.
Job Alert - CPO: Chief Pizza Officer
Yelp is looking for a Chief Pizza Officer to spread the pizza gospel to the Yelp community. They posted this on National Pizza Day I can’t imagine that pizza is an under-Yelped food. What does the Chief Pizza Officer do? Well
During their six-month engagement, the Chief Pizza Officer will be responsible for spreading their love for pizza and sharing the latest pizza trends with the Yelp community.
The winning pizza connoisseur will be awarded $25,000 to continue their pizza education across the U.S. and help us stay abreast of what’s next in the world of pizza.
A stipend of $25,000 to spread the word of our pizza is a decent chunk of change. While inflation will take a bite out of that, you can do a decent cross-country tour exploring the pizzas of the region, documenting your journey and helping the world see pizza through a different lens. You could call it something like “Pizza Stride With Me” because you’re guiding people through the world of pizza, and you’re the local expert. Seems intriguing!
In the fine print of the job posting they list the condition of the Chief Pizza Officer as:
As the Chief Pizza Officer, such individual shall be responsible for certain ongoing obligations during the term of the engagement, including but not limited to: 1 blog post and 3 videos highlighting 3 different pizza spots per month.
Not a bad gig if you can get it. Enter here!
PGH Sandwich Society Branches Out Into Pizza
The PGH Sandwich Society has hands down the best hamburger in the city. It was only a matter of time before the masters of burgers got into the pizza game. If you substitute the crust of the pizza with French fries, is it still a pizza? Pizza historians may be debating the qualifications of this pizza pie, but you can’t argue that it doesn’t look like pizza.
The French fries poking out give it a real chaotic energy that is almost frightening. But, yet, so alluring… They also are doing French bread pizza. More like the PGH Pizza society??
Anyways, find them parked at Strange Roots taproom.
What a National Pizza Day it was! Well, I hope you had pizza this week to celebrate. Let me know what pizza festivities you took part in this week. If you enjoyed this post please consider sharing with a fellow pizza enthusiast. It would mean the world to me. Pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist