In the leafy suburbs of Chicago where they both grew up, pizza was never a complicated philosophical debate, according to Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor, the couple behind Proof in Portland, Oregon. Ordering dinner usually came down to a straightforward familial choice: thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough, Brittany recalls of her family’s Friday night tradition. Today, the Grosvenors sell the former at Proof, though the vernacular of "thin crust" has naturally given way to the more nationally recognized phrase "tavern-style," reflecting a booming pizza trend that has swept from coast to coast in recent years.
For outsiders, Chicago is globally synonymous with its famous, tourist-beckoning deep-dish pizza, but Brittany points out that this towering tourist trap simply does not reflect reality. She cites deep dish as a much rarer, occasional treat compared to the Midwestern, thin-crust style that is currently gaining immense popularity nationwide. The pizza you actually get every week, or encounter at a child’s birthday party or a neighborhood bowling alley, is invariably tavern-style, she notes.
Tavern-style pizza—which is deeply prevalent across the entire Midwest, with Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis all championing their own similar regional pies—is universally known for its ultra-thin, cracker-like crust. Rather than being sliced into traditional triangular wedges, it is cut into a grid or lattice pattern into small squares. Depending on the specific region and the historic pizza shop where one’s personal nostalgia lies, the sauce might lean noticeably sweet or pleasantly spicy. However, lightness and intense crispness remain the style’s defining selling points. Writing for Esquire in 2023, critic Omar Mamoon famously called the variant, which was then still on the rise, a sharp foil to the famously thick Detroit-style pizza that had experienced its own massive cultural moment in the late 2010s.
The inherent beauty of the tavern-style pie lies in its effortless shareability. A pizza yields significantly more individual pieces when cut into a grid than it does when sliced into standard triangles, explains Bradley Shorten, the culinary force behind 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 bite-sized squares makes for exceptional drinking food, especially because a piece fits neatly on a cocktail napkin. According to Shorten, the hallmark of a truly great pie is that every single square features a balanced bite of every ingredient, with the toppings extending all the way to the absolute edge. And while the four small corner slices might not objectively be the "best" structural pieces, Shorten observes that they are invariably the ones everybody reaches for first, especially if they hail from Chicago.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become growing fixations for a savvy cadre of restaurateurs, the party-cut pizza and tavern-style concept has become entirely ubiquitous. Recent high-profile 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 existed in abundance. For some Midwestern expats living on the coasts, these nationwide openings represent a long-overdue opportunity to correct the public record about their hometown pizza culture. For others, it is a chance for regional pride to claim a rightful stake in the broader American pizza landscape.
When Mike Fadem opened the second location of his popular New York City pizzeria Ops—a spot widely 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 affection for it, Fadem admits that it is perhaps not the ultimate version of tavern pizza, noting the iteration’s many vocal critics, some of whom take issue with its distinct use of provel, a gooey processed cheese product. The evolutionary trajectory of tavern-style pizza, he explains, has functioned much like a game of telephone: St. Louis-style pizza is directly derived from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself evolved from classic Neapolitan roots, with noticeable divergence accompanying every geographic jump.
Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s key employees at Ops hails 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. Naturally, this sparked an intrinsic culinary curiosity in Fadem. He began asking himself whether they could successfully execute an Ops version of this style. With Ops already renowned for its exceptional sourdough program, Fadem also wanted to highlight the rich, nutty flavor profiles of whole grains. Furthermore, he was determined to make it intensely crispy, a textural quality that he says naturally draws in discerning New Yorkers. Fadem’s resulting creation appears on the menu under the regionally agnostic name "tavernetta." Though St. Louis and New Jersey served as the initial conceptual inspiration, Fadem found that his favorite version during his extensive research actually came from Milwaukee. The Tavernetta has not displaced the other established pies at the restaurant; instead, it is routinely ordered in addition to them, with most dining groups opting to add at least one to the table.
In June, Los Angeles cocktail destination Bar Next Door celebrated its third anniversary by officially adding a dedicated food menu. Previously, the bar had permitted patrons to bring in hot pies from Prince Street Pizza next door, an arrangement made easier because Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is a partner in the bar. However, co-owner and bar director Brynn Smith noted the practical limitations of that arrangement. After having a heavy slice, people sometimes get a little too full and decide they want to go straight to bed, she explains. That goes against the core goal for the venue, which wants guests to linger a little longer and continue drinking. Smith and her team decided that offering tavern-style pizza would be the perfect solution. The fact that these pizzas—technically listed on the menu as "bar pies" to better align with the establishment’s moniker—are crafted exclusively for the bar by Prince Street only adds another compelling reason for locals to venture out, Smith says.
The fundamental idea of the tavern as a social, convivial space is entirely inseparable from the culture of tavern-style pizza itself. Shorten’s primary goal with La Merna—which he operates alongside his wife Meg Schmitt, who grew up in St. Louis—was to recreate the authentic feel of a classic Chicago dive bar or a traditional Wisconsin supper club. He envisioned a welcoming environment defined by warm wood-paneled walls and checkered floors, where patrons could easily slide into a red leather booth, order pitchers of beer and shareable pizzas, and settle in for the evening. As design trends point toward cozy, lived-in dining spaces, the rising appeal of the tavern vibe across restaurants nationwide is deeply rooted in offering a sense of homey comfort. At these establishments, diners are gently invited to sprawl out, stay awhile, free themselves of culinary pretense, and tap into something deeply comforting in its familiarity. For countless people, that feeling is perfectly embodied by the archetype of the neighborhood pizza shop, which remains permanently tethered in our collective 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 nostalgic take on Bosco sticks—the iconic stuffed cheese breadsticks found in Midwestern school cafeterias—alongside classic Italian beef sandwiches piled high with giardiniera. While they could occasionally track down certain Midwestern staples around Portland, they were frequently frustrated by their inability to find everything under one roof. According to Brennan Grosvenor, their mission is straightforward: they are simply trying to embody the true feeling of walking into a neighborhood tavern back in Chicago and wondering what someone could order there.
