I Found It and I Ate It—NYC's Worst Pizza!
Plus! NYC's best pizza neighborhoods!! World records palooza!!!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #183 of CAFÉ ANNE!
So several readers responded to my question in the last newsletter, “Would you get a dog or cat if they lived as long as humans?” by pointing out that some pets actually do! That got me interested in the lifespans of birds and turtles, and I did a little research.
According to the internets, the world’s oldest turtle, “Jonathan,” is a giant tortoise who lives Saint Helena and is 192 years old. The local currency features him on the back of its five-pence coin. What I want to know: who named this turtle “Jonathan?” Shouldn’t he be honored with a name that is more fitting, such as Sir Methuselah Hardbody Foreverman Oldsterstein?
The oldest living pet bird, meanwhile, is said to be “Charlie,” aka “Charlie the Curser,” a Macaw born in 1899 and, some claim, owned by Winston Churchill when he was prime minister. This is probably not true at all, but I am wishing it into reality. Caw!
Speaking of records, after I wrote in the last issue about the Self-Transcendence 3100, the bonkers (and still on-going) ultramarathon footrace in Queens, I got an email from my high school English teacher, Mr. Crowell, about Bipkin Larkin, one of the race directors I interviewed for the article.
Mr. Crowell is married to Mr. Larkin’s sister, it turns out, and he had a tip: “He is a remarkable story in his own right. Given the teachings of his guru, Sri Chinmoy, it shouldn’t be surprising that you can find Bipin’s name in the Guinness Book of Records numerous times.”
I looked it up and sure enough, Mr. Larkin holds records in the following categories:
Farthest distance to throw and catch a water balloon
Longest egg table tennis rally
Most paper airplanes caught in mouth in one minute
Farthest distance traveled playing Tiddleywinks in 24 hours
Plus a dozen more! And here I thought he was just a runner.
In other news, I will be away on a silent retreat next week, so the next newsletter will land October 27—and I’ll likely have a lot to say!
Finally, huge Pizza Issue shoutouts to our newest paid subscribers David E., Elizabeth L., Lola C., Charisse F. and Dan & Colleen. Plus a sweet Venmo donation from Ashley L. and cash-in-the-mail (my fave!) from Andrea W. That’s enough $$$ for 371 slices, which I shall devour within the next 24 hours!
I am very excited for this week’s issue, of course. We’ve got a little adventure in Midtown West where I sampled the city’s (maybe!) worst pizza, plus a ovenload of NYC pizza stats. Please enjoy.
Regards!
Anne
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WORST OF NYC
I Found It and I Ate It—NYC’s Worst Pizza!
Everyone is extremely busy these days discovering and enjoying the best of everything NYC has to offer. So recently, I decided to zag: why not devote myself to exploring the city’s worst? Last month, I had a lot of fun doing my wash at the city’s worst laundromat. This month: pizza!
Determining the city’s lowest-rated pizza wasn’t easy. There are thousands of pizzerias in the five boroughs, and Google reviews doesn’t allow one to sort by average score. Happily, I got help from a reader—an Alphabet City data scientist who asked to remain anonymous. He did a data scrape of every NYC pizzeria Google review, which he tabulated for me in a handy spreadsheet.
I was disappointed to learn that the city’s lowest-scoring pizzeria is the Artichoke Basille’s Pizza in JFK’s Terminal 4, which you can’t visit without buying a plane ticket. Four of the city’s bottom 20 pizzerias, in fact, were inside airports.
I also disregarded chain pizzerias like Domino’s because, well, they’re supposed to be awful. And at the recommendation of several data scientists, I did not include places with fewer than 20 reviews. This left one clear winner of the CAFÉ ANNE Worst Pizza Crown: A Slice of New York!
A Slice of New York! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name) turned out to be a busy pizzeria near Times Square. With 325 reviews, it had an average score of 2.9 stars (compared to the citywide average of 4.2), and 121 reviewers gave it just one star. Sample comments:
“Made me never want NY pizza again.”
“Atmosphere is like the waiting room of a lawyer who never wins.”
“Didn’t know it was possible to somehow screw up pizza this bad.”
On the other hand, 116 reviewers gave the place five stars. “Best pizza in New York!” several raved.
Reader, I am no pizza connoisseur. I like 99-cent pizza. I like frozen pizza from the supermarket. I like an English muffin with American cheese heated in the toaster oven. So I invited my pal Jack, a West Village software sales rep who moonlights as a NYC pizza tour guide. “A most noble quest!” he responded.
We met outside a Slice of New York! on Eighth Avenue—a bustling stretch of souvenir stores and “gentlemen’s clubs” near the Port Authority. It looked a lot like the seven other pizzerias operating within a one-block radius. What made this place special?
It wasn’t the counter staff. There was a smiling young lady in a hijab, another sporting a “GOD’S FAVORITE,” sweatshirt and a fellow in a hoodie and shades looking very Gen-Z Unabomber. Typical NYC.
Nor was it the décor: fake exposed brick, faux plank flooring, a single plastic daisy in vase. “Everything seems like it’s from 2004,” said Jack. “And the chandeliers are kind of hilarious, right?”
The fare was the usual assortment of pies available by the slice and reheated in the big oven behind the counter. Our pizza arrived on standard paper plates atop standard orange cafeteria trays accompanied by standard paper napkins the size of a toilet paper square.
But the prices! That’s what made this place stand out. $5 for a plain cheese slice—or $5.44 with tax. ($3.50 is the plain-slice norm in the city these days, and you might pay $4—$4.50 at a hyped-up artisanal joint like L’Industrie.)
The place was crowded, but we found seats upstairs.
“Alright!” said Jack, hoisting his slice. “I’m gonna do this!”
He took a big bite and chewed, maintaining a poker face. “Okay,” he said. “Get in there.”
I took my own bite, and it took a moment to hit me, because there was nothing to hit me. The texture was fine, but the slice was weirdly devoid of flavor. I did not taste tomato sauce, I did not taste cheese, I did not taste dough. The pizza wasn’t offensive, just vexing in the manner common to all things so insipid they haven’t quite earned their right to exist.
“That’s not good!” I said.
“No,” Jack agreed, “You know what it tastes like? School cafeteria pizza.”
“Is this the worst pizza in New York City?” I asked.
“That I’ve had in some time, yes,” he said.
The problems, according to Jack: cheap ingredients, a truncated dough fermentation process, and evidence of just having sat around too long.
I wouldn’t say it was the worst—I had a 99-cent slice recently that was of similar quality. But for $5.44? That’s what made it so terrible. We both quit after a few bites.
But we could be wrong! After our taste test, we fell into conversation with Elyse and Tiffany Tindall, a mother-daughter duo from Cartersville, Georgia, visiting on a college tour. Elyse, the daughter, said they picked this place “because we walked by it.”
“Have you had the pizza yet?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Elyse, of her $5 slice. “It was delicious! It was very crunchy! Not like the pizza we have at home.”
She gave it five stars: “It’s SO good. It is THAT GOOD!”
Mom, who’d paid $7 for a supreme slice with sausage, onions and peppers—plus $8 for two cans of Coke Zero—nodded in agreement.
“So I’ll tell you why I’m writing about this place,” I said. “Aside from pizzerias in the airport and chains like Domino’s, this is the worst-rated pizza in the entire city.”
“It is?” said Elyse. “Do we know why? Wait. Hold on. I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with it now!”
“Even bad pizza is still good,” Jack suggested sympathetically.
We also chatted with a couple from Argentina. They gave the place three stars. They appreciated its convenient location near their hotel.
So far this had been fun, but now came the hard part: interviewing the owner. I approached with my best smile and introduced myself. “You’re not going to like this,” I said, and told him I was writing about how his pizza is the worst-scoring in the city.
He didn’t miss a beat. “Let’s talk!” he said. He came out from behind the counter, wiped down a table and ordered us a slice with fresh mozzarella—his best-selling pie.
He introduced himself as Refaat Soliman. He moved to the States from Egypt in 1978 and lives in Queens. As a young man, he trained horses for Sheikh Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa. “He’s the King of Bahrain now,” he said. “When I was working for him, he was crown prince. Then I came to America, to wash dishes!”
Mr. Soliman, who is 73, said he opened Slice of New York! 25 years ago, and 90% of his customers are tourists. He also owns Burger Man—a big restaurant in Times Square, which gets much better ratings. He’s done well!
He cheerfully acknowledged his pizzeria’s bad reviews and endeavored to explain. While his account was long and complicated, I got the gist: his landlord and the city have made it impossible to make many needed renovations. There have been court battles for years. The stress, he said, killed his wife.
He turned to an employee. “Ahmed,” he said, “can you go turn on the air condition? I want the young lady and the gentleman to hear the air condition.”
The employee flicked a switch, and the HVAC roared to life like a jet engine. It was hard to hear anything over the din. I thought of the many reviews I’d read complaining about the loud AC or, in some cases, the lack of AC altogether.
But what about the pizza?
“I make pizza like mama cook for you!” said Mr. Soliman, and inquired how we liked the fresh mozzarella slice we’d been nibbling . We gave our honest feedback: it wasn’t great!
“I’m very happy you criticizing me,” he said. “I love it! You know what? You have to learn. You have to acknowledge your mistakes so you can correct yourself. Never too late.”
“Your prices are quite high,” I said.
“No!” he said. “You know how long I have these prices? Since 2012.”
The prices only seem high now, he said, because of the economy, and the 99-cent slice spot operating around the corner. He said this situation accounts for most of the bad reviews. And then he had another employee come over to talk about the free pizza they give to folks who can’t afford a slice.
“If you give me your business card, I promise you, I’ll fix the store and invite you to come visit then,” he offered. I told him we’d love to return.
Out on the street, Jack showed me how the back of Mr. Soliman’s own business card featured an eagle and an American flag. “I feel bad talking about how bad the pizza was,” he said.
Not me! The remarkable Mr. Soliman is truly offering tourists “A Slice of New York!” on several different levels—and no in harm pointing this out. And if I want mediocre pizza, meanwhile, I know a great 99-cent slice shop in Downtown Brooklyn.
NYC Pizza by the Numbers!
While reporting this story, I also had a lot of fun analyzing my pizza scoring spreadsheet to generate all kinds of useless NYC pizza stats…
-Number of the 100 lowest-scoring locations that were chain locations: 71
-Number that were a Domino’s: 51
-Average score of all NYC pizzerias (out of 5 stars): 4.2
-Average score of independent pizzerias: 4.3
-Average score of NYC chain pizzerias: 3.5
Citywide pizza review star distribution:
5 stars: 66%
4 stars: 16%
3 stars: 7%
2 stars: 3%
1 star: 8%
Average score by borough (out of 5 stars):
Queens: 3.9
Bronx: 4.1
Staten Island: 4.2
Brooklyn: 4.2
Manhattan: 4.3
Top five ZIP codes for pizza, by average score (with at least five pizzerias):
11237 (Bushwick): 4.51
10040 (Washington Heights): 4.5
10302 (Port Richmond): 4.5
11222 (Greenpoint): 4.49
10014 (West Village/Meatpacking): 4.45
Bottom five ZIP codes for pizza, by average score:
11236 (Canarsie): 3.42
10475 (Co-op City, Bronx): 3.56
11412 (St. Albans, Queens): 3.65
11224 (Coney Island/Brighton Beach): 3.67
11365 (Auburndale, Queens): 3.70
ZIPs with the most pizzerias:
10003 (East Village/Union Square): 61
11201 (Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO): 42
10014 (West Village): 39
11215 (Park Slope): 38
10036 (Midtown/Times Square): 35
What worst-of NYC category should I explore next? Parks? Libraries? Bagel shops? Leave your ideas in the comments!
CAFÉ ANNE is a free weekly newsletter created by Brooklyn journalist Anne Kadet. Subscribe to get the latest issue every Monday.
Is Anne Kadet the Dave Portnoy of bad pizza? Maybe the anti-Dave Portnoy is more apt. In any event, I have to believe there are worse slices to be found in the city, though probably not for 5 bucks. Props to Refaat Soliman for speaking with you and you for asking to speak to him. I hope the Georgia family finds themselves a good slice.
How has no-one yet said worst coffee?