Some of the biggest names in New Haven pizza joined together on Friday for National Pizza Day to celebrate their shared love of “ah-beets.”
“We have to celebrate these pizza bakers, we have to celebrate our community,” New Haven pizza historian Colin Caplan said to a crowd at Ernie’s Pizzeria.
On National Pizza Day, the hands that make the apizza at Modern, Sally’s, Zeneli’s, Pepe’s, Next Door, BAR and more, were all in the kitchen sharing laughs and making their most sacred dish.
“Everything we do is love,” Gazmir Zeneli said. “And having a national pizza day is a big celebration for us.”
They were honored for the centuries of history and culture deeply rooted in New Haven. State Comptroller Sean Scanlon shared a story about his Italian grandfather who just had surgery.
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“And he called me over as soon as he woke up and he goes ‘Spike, apizza!’”
Caplan organized the event and shared the history of pizza in New Haven, with strong influence from its sister city Amalfi, Italy.
“A lot of times it was brought in by the women, the families, and the bakers. And it would be a family business that was taught to the next generation and fed to the factory workers and the people on the streets, so it really is a street food, a peasant food, and we’ve adopted it as our food,” Caplan said.
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It’s made New Haven a pizza destination, and the hub of local comfort food. People rarely share who’s their favorite.
“My favorite pizza is my mom’s pizza,” Zeneli said with a laugh.
There are 75 pizza shops in the city and the industry is big business, raking in $100 million in sales each year.
“We get about two million visitors in pizzerias per year, in New Haven alone,” Caplan said.
And in honor of National Pizza Day, CT Bites and Info New Haven are giving away free New Haven pizza for a year.
“Pizza transcends all social levels, economies. It’s the one food that I think brings people together, and why not celebrate that fact,” Bruno Baggetta of Market New Haven, a partner of Info New Haven, said.
There’s a lot of talk about pizza in the city of New Haven, but if you just step over the line to West Haven, Zuppardi’s has been in serving up apizza for 90 years.
“It’s an honor just to be mentioned in the same breath as the other older pizzerias in New Haven,” Craig Pearce said.
His mom Cheryl Zuppardi Pearce and aunt Lori Zuppardi now run the family business. The kitchen was busy on National Pizza Day, proving you don’t have to be in New Haven to find great pizza.
“My grandfather said the last bite has to be just as great as the first and I like to think that we still do that today,” Pearce said. "And that’s what keeps people coming back.”
