Columbus, Ohio Style Pizza Documentary (2021)

Columbus is known as the

pizza

capital of the world. There were more pizzerias per capita in the Columbus area than anywhere else in the country, so

pizza

is truly Columbus food. It's a great equalizer. Food snobs love it. The common worker loves it. I loved talking about pizza. The front door opened. You could smell the cheese. I was probably six or seven years old. It was simply a favorite food. I mean, it was just something different. Columbus has a rich history of T-A-T pizza restaurant on the east side of Columbus as origins dating back to 1929. 90's of people like pizza, I don't know if it's because of the crust, the tomato, the cheese, the pepperonis , vegetables, they used to be, they used to come in a bag and I just remember you don't open the bag and slide the pizza out now you have to tear the bag open and let the steam go Massey's is what I grew up eating I grew up in Gahanna every Friday after football games we went to church and ate Massey's pizza I think it's the crust the sauce and just the pepperoni the combination of everything when you get a pizza and you put it on the table and you have several people around it it's not unusual for everyone to take a piece of pizza the party cut tavern cut massey cut whatever you want to call it all, those little squares allow you to share a lot of pizza, many different types of pizza with different topping combinations with people so it becomes a shared experience .

Columbus

style

pizza has a lot of pepperoni in the way it is cut, so pretty much what. we're going to make with the doughs cut approximately every pepperoni and a half you're going to have a cup of that thin, crispy crust but not to mention that it's a party

style

or tavern style cut which is the typical Columbus sauce, it's just a little bit sweeter. My favorite part of Columbus style pizzas is the cornflour crust. Cornmeal base isn't in all Columbus styles, but all my favorites are just tradition. Columbus was truly ground zero for pizza in the Midwest, our first pizzeria in the city in 1950 and that's the pizzeria by name.

Specifically a restaurant rated to serve pizza as its main dish, the Massey's brand started as Romeo's in the early '50s and Jim and Dan Masucci at Romeo Siri were the guys who opened it if you went in there to eat you. I felt like you were in Romeo's house. Jimmy Massey was actually called James Massouci. He changed his name. Aziz is much easier to pronounce. Jimmy and his brother began developing Massey's locations throughout central Ohio. So in many ways Jimmy Massey is the johnny appleseed of pizza in central

ohio

1962 guido casa bought massey's pizza from them home of perfect pizza flavor guido who was the owner came every day cut the cheese cut the pepperoni he was making the dough and uh he was he was growing up and phil, his son was taking over and phil grew the business, I mean he went from two stores to seven stores, that's hard to do and he was able to set up a store in 2000, Then we bought it from his son Phil's house and we've been running it ever since, by continuing I mean the whole tradition would be the same and the pizza was going to be the same and we do what's called a quarter overlap, so that you're going to overlap the pepperoni in front and the reason why you're doing this because obviously the pepperonis are going to cook a little bit and as they cook it's going to leave the desired amount of space between the pepperonis, just like I said, the shape where they were placed.

It just has that unique flavor, the pepperonis, the way they cut them, that ball of fat, when you see the pizza, when we layer them, as they cook, you see them slowly start to separate and you can see the cheese. We know how Massey's pizza is made when you put grease on the pepperonis. Our pepperoni is made here in Columbus, but we have a special recipe that they make for us called pepperoni portofino. We put 155 pieces of pepperoni on a large pizza. Columbus style has edge to edge pepperoni, I mean it just covers, covers the whole pizza, you can have great pepperoni and a cheap cheese and it doesn't work, so we make sure we get the highest quality cheese and pepperoni. use pans, it cooks on a layer of cornmeal under the product, it's mainly to make the pizza go in and out of the oven easier, but it adds great flavor, it's nice, like a crunch, a little crunchy and always reminds me like a child eating pizza. always have the cornmeal that gets stuck on your hands uh it's absolutely important because you want to have the crispiest crust possible and for us in our oven we feel like turning them gives us that balance of the crust so that each slice is crispy and crispy, and there we have the original Massey pepperoni when you cook it on that steel platform, it just creates a flavor and a crispy texture that you can't get in a chain conveyor oven, those ovens have baked a lot of pizza it's like a good cast iron skillet, you know, it's already seasoned, it's been doing the job for years, the quality of time, even the time to wait for a pizza to be made, the next few minutes to get it, it's worth the wait, thank you. to call messi's pizza and gahanna, this will be to pick up our delivery at our 16 stores. 15 of the locations are in central Ohio.

The number of independent, non-corporate, independently owned pizzerias in Columbus remains much higher than nationally. On average, our franchisees are owner-operators, so the owner, the people who bring in the money, are operating the store. I'm 45 years old and not many people can say they kept a job at 45 years old. I can tell you right now. I have a PhD in pizza, I can cook it, I can prepare it and you know you lead by example. I think we've achieved that here at Massey's. I think it's important, but it's about the people I basically work with throughout high school and college.

He had a twin brother who also worked here. His name was Claude. He worked here 39 years ago, in the '60s and '70s. We were here like every night, so they called us the Massey twins. This was a good option for me. They have always been very good at spending money where it is necessary to improve quality. The people involved, passionate about what they do, who care about their community and want to provide the best product possible. "You have no passion." I'm just trying to count the dollars. I have had the passion. I think all the people involved in pizza are all friends.

We know all their families and many of the owners of the pizzerias that still exist today. The elders began to work. with masses at the beginning I really feel like mom and dad have a network through them. I don't know if you'll find the same type of pizza community anywhere else in the country. Columbus's style is not Neapolitan, it is not. new york city style pizza not chicago deep dish pizza not california style pizza not detroit style pizza not st louisville pizza new england greek pizza altoona pizza colorado mountain pie jumbo slice dc dayton style pizza brier style pizza hill pizza stubenville

ohio

valley grandma charles style pizza new haven pizza ah pizza old forge pizza quad towns trenton tomato pie philly tomato pie rhode island red pizza omaha pizza or chicago bar tavern pizza so

columbus

style pizza isn't none of those styles, but it's still a style