For anyone who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Friday night pizza was a straightforward proposition. According to Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor, the couple behind Proof in Portland, Oregon, ordering dinner essentially came down to three choices: thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough, as Brittany recalls of her family’s weekend routines. While the Grosvenors now sell the former at Proof, the local language of "thin crust" has given way to a more nationally familiar phrasing. Today, it is known across the country as tavern-style, representing a surging pizza trend that has swept from coast to coast over the last few years.
To outsiders, Chicago is often inextricably linked with its famous, tourist-beckoning deep-dish pizza. However, Brittany notes that this stereotype simply does not reflect reality. Deep dish, she explains, is reserved for special occasions or out-of-town visitors, functioning as a much less frequent treat than the Midwestern thin-crust style that is currently gaining immense popularity nationwide. The pizza people actually eat every week, or order by the dozen for a child’s birthday party, is almost always tavern-style.
This distinctive style is prevalent across the broader Midwest, with Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis all touting their own similar pies. It is traditionally known for its crisp, cracker-like crust, which is uniquely cut into a grid or lattice pattern into small squares instead of the standard triangular slices. Depending on the specific region and the neighborhood pizza shop where one’s nostalgia lies, the sauce might lean toward the sweeter or spicier side. However, extreme lightness and an assertive crunch remain the style’s defining selling points.
Writing for Esquire in 2023, critic Omar Mamoon called the variant—which was then still rapidly on the rise—a direct foil to the famously thick Detroit-style pizza that had enjoyed its own massive cultural moment in the late 2010s. The enduring beauty of the tavern-style pie lies fundamentally in its shareability. A pizza yields significantly more individual pieces when cut into a grid than it does when divided into traditional triangles, explains Bradley Shorten, who operates both Kim’s Uncle Pizza in his hometown Chicago suburb of Westmont, Illinois, and the recently opened La Merna in Washington, D.C.
Pizza cut into little squares makes for exceptional drinking food, Shorten points out, especially since it easily fits onto a cocktail napkin. According to Shorten, the hallmark of a truly great pie is that every single square contains a little bit of every ingredient, with the toppings and cheese extending all the way to the edge. And while the four small corner slices might not objectively be the "best" ones in terms of toppings, Shorten notes that they are unfailingly the pieces that everyone reaches for first, particularly if those diners happen to be from Chicago.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become growing fixations for a cadre of innovative restaurateurs, the "party cut" pizza and its accompanying style have become ubiquitous. Recent openings include Keepers in New York City; One Trick Pony in Fort Worth, Texas; Tillie’s Tavern Pizza in Wheat Ridge, Colorado; and spots like Zarella and Dimmi Dimmi Corner Italian in Chicago, where the style has always been abundantly available. For many displaced Chicagoans, these openings across the country present a long-awaited opportunity to correct the historical record regarding their city’s true pizza culture, while other Midwesterners proudly claim their own stake in the region’s rich pie heritage.
When Mike Fadem opened the second location of his popular New York City pizzeria Ops—a spot primarily known for its wood-fired, Neapolitan-esque pies featuring leopard-spotted crusts and pliant dough—he wanted to offer something refreshingly new. Fadem originally hails from St. Louis, where the city’s namesake pizza is notoriously super-thin. Despite his deep personal fondness for it, Fadem readily admits that it may not be the absolute best version of tavern pizza, acknowledging its many critics who take particular issue with its use of a gooey, processed cheese known as provel.
The historical trajectory of tavern-style pizza, Fadem explains, has functioned much like a game of telephone. St. Louis-style pizza is ultimately derived from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself evolved from traditional Neapolitan roots, with noticeable divergence accompanying each geographic and cultural jump. Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s employees at Ops is from New Jersey, a state that proudly claims its own distinct thin-crust, tavern- or bar-style pizza tradition, much like the fiercely devoted following surrounding the bar pies of the Boston area.
This rich tapestry sparked a creative curiosity in Fadem: could they craft an Ops-specific version of this regional classic? Known widely for their mastery of sourdough, Fadem also wanted to highlight the deep, rustic flavor of whole grains. Crucially, he wanted the crust to be remarkably crispy, a texture quality he knew would instantly captivate New York diners.
Fadem’s unique take now appears on the menu under the regionally agnostic name "tavernetta." Although St. Louis and New Jersey served as initial sources of inspiration, Fadem notes that the absolute best tavern-style pizza he encountered during his extensive research was actually found in Milwaukee. Rather than replacing the restaurant’s existing menu items, the tavernetta is typically ordered alongside them as an addition, with most dining groups opting to get at least one for the table.
This connection between pizza and socialization was also on the mind of Brynn Smith, owner and bar director at Los Angeles cocktail spot Bar Next Door. In June, the bar celebrated its third anniversary by expanding its offerings to include food. Previously, the establishment had allowed patrons to bring in pies from Prince Street Pizza next door, largely because Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is a partner in the bar.
However, Smith noted a practical limitation to traditional heavy slices in a drinking environment. After having a traditional heavy slice, customers sometimes get a bit too full and decide they are ready to go home and sleep. The primary goal for Bar Next Door, Smith explains, is to encourage patrons to stay a little longer and continue drinking, making tavern-style pizza the perfect culinary companion. The fact that these pizzas—technically listed on the menu as "bar pies" to better complement the establishment’s moniker—are made exclusively for the bar by Prince Street provides yet another compelling reason for locals to venture out for the evening.
The fundamental idea of the neighborhood tavern as a social, convivial space is ultimately inseparable from tavern-style pizza itself. Shorten’s primary goal with La Merna—which he runs alongside his wife, Meg Schmitt, who grew up in St. Louis—was to evoke the unmistakable atmosphere of a classic Chicago dive bar or a traditional Wisconsin supper club. They envisioned a welcoming space defined by wood-paneled walls and checkered floors, where patrons could comfortably slide into a red leather booth, order pitchers of beer and square-cut pizza, and settle in for a long evening.
This rising appeal of the cozy tavern vibe across restaurants nationwide is deeply rooted in a desire to provide a homey, lived-in environment. At these establishments, diners are encouraged to sprawl out, shed their pretense, and tap into something deeply comforting in its familiarity. For countless people, this feeling is perfectly exemplified by the archetype of the hometown pizza shop, which remains permanently tethered in our cultural imaginations to the trappings of a simpler era.
It is precisely for this reason that, out in Oregon, the Grosvenors have started serving their own regional interpretations of Bosco sticks—the legendary stuffed cheese breadsticks of Midwestern school cafeterias—alongside classic Italian beef sandwiches piled high with giardiniera. While they could occasionally find certain Midwestern staples around Portland, they were frequently frustrated by the inability to find everything under one roof. As Brennan Grosvenor puts it, they are simply trying to authentically embody the feeling of walking into a classic Chicago tavern and wondering what you could order there.
