In the suburbs of Chicago, where Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor grew up, a Friday night order was never a complicated philosophical debate. It simply came down to a fundamental household question: thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough. Brittany recalls her family’s weekly traditions revolving around these familiar styles long before they ever dreamed of opening Proof, their pizzeria in Portland, Oregon. Today, the Grosvenors serve up the former at their establishment, though the regional phrase “thin crust” has naturally yielded to the much more widely recognized national terminology: “tavern-style.” Over the past few years, this unassuming pizza trend has quietly swept across the United States from coast to coast, capturing the imaginations and appetites of diners far beyond the American Midwest.
While outsiders and tourists frequently associate the Windy City with its famous, towering deep-dish pizza, Brittany notes that this stereotype simply does not reflect the reality of everyday life for locals. Deep-dish is widely treated as a much less frequent indulgence—a novelty reserved for out-of-town guests or special occasions—rather than the weekly staple that the Midwestern thin-crust style represents. The pizza that people actually eat every week, whether ordered for a casual Friday night dinner or served at a child’s birthday party, is almost always tavern-style.
Tavern-style pizza, which remains deeply prevalent across the entire Midwest with Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis all touting their own beloved variations of similar pies, is historically renowned for its exceptionally thin, cracker-like crust. Rather than being sliced into traditional triangular wedges, it is famously cut into a grid or lattice pattern. Depending entirely on the specific region and the nostalgic hometown pizza shop where one’s loyalty lies, the sauce can lean noticeably sweet or feature a spicy kick. However, the ultimate selling point of the style remains its distinct lightness and satisfying crispness. Writing for Esquire in 2023, food writer Omar Mamoon highlighted the variant—which was then steadily on the rise—as a direct foil to the famously thick Detroit-style pizza that experienced its own massive cultural moment in the late 2010s.
The inherent beauty of the tavern-style pie lies largely in its remarkable shareability. A single pizza yields significantly more individual portions when it is cut into a grid rather than traditional triangles, according to Bradley Shorten, the culinary mind behind Kim’s Uncle Pizza in his hometown Chicago suburb of Westmont, Illinois, as well as the recently opened La Merna in Washington, D.C. Pizza cut into small, manageable squares makes for exceptional drinking food, particularly because a piece fits neatly onto a standard cocktail napkin. Shorten explains that the hallmark of a truly great pie is that every single square receives an equitable distribution of every ingredient, with the toppings stretching all the way out to the very edge of the crust. And while the four small corner pieces might not technically be the objectively “best” slices on the tray, Shorten notes that they are unfailingly the ones that everyone reaches for first, especially if those diners happen to hail from Chicago.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become a growing fixation for a cadre of ambitious restaurateurs nationwide, the classic party-cut pizza and its accompanying style have become increasingly ubiquitous. New establishments have continued to sprout in major metropolitan areas and mid-sized cities alike, including Keepers in New York City; One Trick Pony in Fort Worth, Texas; Tillie’s Tavern Pizza in Wheat Ridge, Colorado; and Zarella alongside Dimmi Dimmi Corner Italian in Chicago, where this style of pizza has always enjoyed an abundance of adoration. For many displaced Chicagoans, these new openings across the country provide a welcome opportunity to correct long-standing misconceptions about their city’s true pizza culture, while giving other Midwesterners a chance to firmly claim their own stake in the regional pizza conversation.
When Mike Fadem opened the second location of his popular New York City pizzeria Ops—an establishment widely known for its wood-fired, Neapolitan-esque pies featuring leopard-spotted crusts and pliant dough—he deliberately sought to offer something entirely fresh to his clientele. Fadem originally hails from St. Louis, where the city’s namesake pizza is exceptionally thin. Despite his deep-seated personal affection for it, Fadem admits that it may not objectively represent the absolute best version of tavern-style pizza, pointing out that the local iteration attracts plenty of critics, some of whom take vocal issue with its reliance on provel, a gooey, highly processed cheese blend. The historical trajectory of tavern-style pizza, Fadem explains, resembles a culinary game of telephone: St. Louis-style pizza directly derives from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself ultimately evolved from traditional Neapolitan pizza, with distinct divergences occurring at every single geographical jump.
Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s kitchen employees at Ops is from New Jersey, a state that proudly champions its own distinct tradition of thin-crust, tavern- or bar-style pizza, much like the devoted following enjoyed by the bar pies of the greater Boston area. Inspired by these overlapping traditions, Fadem began wondering if they could develop a unique Ops interpretation of the style. Because Ops is already widely celebrated for its expert sourdough, Fadem also wanted to highlight the rich, complex flavor profiles of whole grains, while ensuring the crust achieved an intense crispiness that he knew would deeply appeal to New Yorkers. The resulting creation was ultimately added to the menu under the regionally agnostic moniker “tavernetta.” Although St. Louis and New Jersey served as the initial conceptual inspirations, Fadem discovered through extensive research that the ultimate blueprint for his ideal pie actually resided in Milwaukee. Interestingly, the Tavernetta has not displaced any of the other pies on the restaurant’s menu; instead, it is almost always ordered as an additive choice, with most dining groups opting to secure at least one for the table alongside their usual orders.
In Los Angeles, the popular cocktail destination Bar Next Door celebrated its third anniversary by expanding its operations to include a dedicated food menu. Previously, the bar had maintained a casual policy allowing patrons to bring in pies directly from Prince Street Pizza located right next door, facilitated by the fact that Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is also a partner in the bar venture. However, owner and bar director Brynn Smith realized that heavier styles of pizza could sometimes cut a night short. After having a traditional heavy slice, customers would occasionally feel too full and decide to head straight home to bed. Smith notes that the primary goal for the establishment is to encourage patrons to linger a little longer and enjoy more drinks, making a lighter tavern-style pizza the perfect culinary companion. The fact that these pizzas—technically listed on the menu as “bar pies” to better align with the establishment’s sophisticated identity—are crafted exclusively for the bar by Prince Street adds yet another compelling reason for locals to venture out for an evening.
The fundamental idea of the neighborhood tavern as a social, convivial space remains entirely inseparable from the very nature of tavern-style pizza itself. Shorten’s primary vision for La Merna, which he operates alongside his wife Meg Schmitt—who grew up in St. Louis—was to capture 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 classic checkered floors, where patrons could comfortably slide into a red leather booth, order pitchers of beer alongside shared pizzas, and settle in for a leisurely evening.
The rising appeal of this relaxed tavern aesthetic across restaurants nationwide is firmly rooted in the deep-seated human desire for spaces that feel genuinely homey, unpretentious, and comfortably lived-in. At these modern taverns, diners are implicitly invited to sprawl out, stay awhile, and shed modern pretense in favor of something comforting and familiar. For countless individuals, this welcoming atmosphere is perfectly embodied by the nostalgic archetype of the hometown pizza shop, an institution forever tethered in the cultural imagination to the warmth of a simpler era.
It is precisely for this reason that out in Oregon, the Grosvenors have also begun serving their own regional interpretation of Bosco sticks—the iconic stuffed cheese breadsticks native to Midwestern school cafeterias—alongside classic Italian beef sandwiches smothered in giardiniera. While the couple could occasionally track down certain isolated Midwestern specialties around the Portland area, they often felt frustrated by their inability to find everything authentic under one roof. As Brennan Grosvenor aptly summarizes, their mission is simply to fully embody the underlying feeling of home: if a customer walked into a traditional neighborhood tavern back in Chicago, what exactly would they expect to find on the menu?
