July 1- July 13 2008
Jeff Varasano's Pizza Tour of the NY, NJ, CT and PA areas

Wed July 23^rd & Thu July 24^th in San Francisco

It's been a crazy few weeks. First we were on the FRONT PAGE of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the NY Times on the same day! Then we had this whole tour. But things are settling down. NY Tour is DONE!!! Thanks to those of you that joined me!

I'm making a quick stop in San Francisco and I'll definitely hit Pizzaiolo in Oakland on Wed July, 23rd at 7:30. We might hit a few other places Thursday afternoon and evening too. Email me at Jeff@think2020.com if you are interested in joining me. Just put 'SF' in the subject line. I'll send you my cell number and you can call and confirm the time or meet up. I'll update this page periodically, but it might be best to call on the day to confirm. I'll probably come up with a firm 7:30 meeting place for Thursday too, but during the day just call and we'll meet as we tour, if possible.

Here's just a few places that MAY be hit. Any feedback would be appreciated since I obviously can't hit too many of these.

Pizza’s I’ve done already so I’m not doing these again.

A16
Pizzeria Picco?
Amici's - (Raj: It's not my favorite and it's overpriced, but the reason I mention is because you're considering opening a place and these guys have scaled their business successfully to multiple locations. They do a thin crust 'east coast style' pizza. high temp ovens, grande cheese)
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1381640363 Picco
Acme Bread

Likely prospects

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1297312433 Pizzaiolo
Pizzetta 211
Tomasso
Delfina

Videos from Kim (I think these are all SF)

Fan Suggestions

www.totos.com
Cheeseboard pizza (Somehow related to chez Panisse)
http://www.berettasf.com/
Arinell
Goat Hill Pizza
Little Star (Raj: It's a deep dish pizza place, but it's unbelievable. Skip the thin crust)

Bread - Check out any great Bread or Sourdough bakeries or resources

NY Tour Wrap up

Here’s the rankings for the 22 pizzerias I ate at (some multiple times) Gee my stomach doesn’t feel that great. Could there be a connection? We also took photos at another 8 places. We took about 800 photos in all!!!

As always, I’m ranking on the food only. Not the décor, location, or even the service. The management was so nice to us at almost every stop even though we showed up unannounced to take photos. Regarding the two places that I list that had horrible service: it was not because of the camera. The horrible service occurred before we pulled out the cameras. They are just naturally miserable human beings, as near as we can tell.

When I update the main site I will roll these rankings in, but average them with other visits I’ve had at these places, just to be fair.

I didn't hit as many fan suggested places as I would have liked. Since I only had a limited time with my photographer, Sharon, I had to hit all the top name places first. Also, we really missed out on Brooklyn. Just hit one place. We have to go back and take photos of Grimaldi's, Totonno's and DiFara's next time at the least. We didn't hit Philly or Trenton either. Next time...

	Pizzeria	Mini Review
1	Modern	Tomato cheese Pie amazing. Clams not great at all. The owner Bill was awesome too.
2	Pepe’s	Clam pie Amazing. Tomato Cheese very good too. LOTS of people have emailed me that this place had slipped way down. I popped in several times in the past few years and it didn’t even look that good. Wow, this was a comeback. It looked great, tasted great. The big surprise of the trip. The manager Steve and the waitress Susan were a 10 too.
3	Patsy’s	Fresh Mozz amazing. White pie also outstanding
4	Franny’s	Best Neapolitan style we had. Really good
5	Johnny’s	Slipped a little on the pizza but still among the best. Service jus as HORRIBLE as ever. Almost like they hate their customers. Saw customers walk out enraged on one visit. On another visit we wanted to leave but stayed for the photos only. I almost want to take them off the list entirely just for being assholes.
6	Louie & Ernie’s	Outstanding, solid NY Style
7	Adrienne's	Wow, Grandma style at it's best. Almost as good as mine!
8	Luzzo’s	Sharon Loved it, but I thought they had slipped a little. Not as light as usual. But good.
9	Bleecker Street	Another great Grandma slice. I could eat this everyday.
10	Zuppardi’s	Similar to Modern, but not quite as good
11	Joe’s	A little dry but still a yummy street slice.
12	Top of the Park (Booton, NJ)	One of the surprises of the trip. The pie didn't look like much but really was very tasty. Excellent sauce, good mouth feel. Awesome owner. Get the Brooklyn style well done.
13	Crosby Street	Round Sicilian very light and tasty. Not a gourmet pie, but a classic NY street place
14	Isabella’s Oven	Slipped a little on the sauce and the crust was not as light. A little disappointing, but still up there
15	Artichoke	I don’t' get what all the fuss about this place is. NOT Manhattan's DiFara as has been claimed. Thickest NY Style slice I've ever seen. Regular pie about as thick as a grandma slice. Greasy. Overrated. Cheap big eats for college kids.
16	Ben’s	Tasty Sicilian but not like it was in it's prime
17	Carmine 28	Just ok. We got some beautiful photos, but the crust is flat and tasteless.
18	L’Asso	Very nice to us, but the pizza was pretty average
19	Reservoir Tavern (Booton, NJ)	Packed but not very good. Just super greasy.
20	Benny Tudino’s	Again, people confuse big and good. Had I known they billed themselves as "The Biggest Slice" I wouldn't even have bothered. Cut each slice in half and then tell me how it tastes.. Sheesh
21	Wall Street in New Haven (Formerly Naples)	Pizza was horrible and they painted over the beautiful wood in Pepto Bismol Pink. Train Wreck
22	Eli's	Stay away. Woodstone oven (i.e. fake brick oven) and horrible service. Manager should be fired.

1	Parisi Bakery	Photo's Only (out of pizza)
2	Lombardi’s	Photo's Only (huge line). The management was super nice to us though
3	John’s	Photo's Only. Also thanks to the manager for his graciousness
4	Una Pizza Napoletana	Photo's Only (Just opening, no pizza yet)
5	Otto	Photo's Only. But I wouldn't bother eating here. Didn’t look good
6	Arturo’s	Photo's Only (Closed)
7	Sally’s	Photo's Only (Closed)
8	Abate	Photo's Only (we were out of time)

Luzzo’s

Pepe’s White Clam

Luzzo’s again (I think)

Thursday July 10^th

Today we are probably hitting just a couple of places in Trenton. Probably Reservoir Tavern and DeLorenzo’s. If we are ambitious we may hit Philly or more Jersey spots but it’s not likely. We are a little pizza’d out and my amazing Photographer Sharon is no longer with me and my photography skills and camera sux, so I may just do those another time. Sharon shot nearly 800 photos. I’m posting three shots Sharon took just as teasers.

Wednesday, July 9^th

The tour is going great so far. I’ve eaten at 19 pizzerias! And we’ve photographed a bunch of others. Today is a down day and then I’m going to figure out what I’m going to do about Jersey Trenton and Philly. Possibly start that tomorrow. Shoot me an email at Jeff@think2020.com if you want to join up. The way this has been working, I’ve been giving out my cell to those who write me and then we text or call to find each other and meet up. It’s too hard to really give an exact time and place to meet in advance because of traffic and plan changes, etc.

Friday, July 4^th

Yesterday we toured 7 pizzerias in Lower Manhattan and took some great photos for the site. I’ve finally gotten a chance to call around for holiday schedules and it looks like the main place in Philly, Tocanelli’s, is closed all weekend and into next week. So I might try and reschedule the Trento/Philly trip for later Thursday the 10^th or Friday the 11^th. Not sure yet. Also, due to restaurants being closed, I moved the New Haven Trip. Here’s the current schedule:

Date	Time	Where	Plan
Tue 01-Jul-08	7:00 PM	Johnny's in Mt. Vernon	Just 1 stop
Wed 02-Jul-08	9:00 PMish	Patsy's in Harlem. Artichoke, Isabella’s Oven
Thu 03-Jul-08	2PM	Lombardi’s, Adrienne’s, Luzzo’s, UPN, L’Asso	Tour Manhattan
Fri 04-Jul-08		No Pizza
Sat 05-Jul-08		No Pizza
Sun 06-Jul-08	Noon 6PM	John’s on Bleecker Grimaldi’s	Tour Greenwich Village Tour Brooklyn
Mon 07-Jul-08	TBD 9PM	Possibly Wall Street Pizza or Yorkside for Lunch T Bar in New Haven for Dinner.	Tour New Haven
Tue 08-Jul-08	Noon	Zuppari’s in Hamden, CT	Tour New Haven & CT
Wed 09-Jul-08	TBD
Thu 10-Jul-08	TBD
Fri 11-Jul-08	TBD	Trenton / Philly	Tour Trenton / Philly
Sat 12-Jul-08

Thursday, July 3^rd

I'm touring Manhattan today instead of Brooklyn. Mostly I'm taking photos but there may be a slice or two thrown in. We are going to start up at Patsy's around 1PM and we are going to meet someone at Adrienne's down on Stone Street at around 2. Then we are going to go all around the village touring all the top places. We have to wrap up early because my photographer has a party tonight. Best way to join me today is definitely just to phone or text me and see where I am. Last night after Patsy's we hit Isabella's Oven and Artichoke. Saturday we are definitely hitting New Haven.

Tuesday, July 1^st

Hi Everyone,

Ok, my schedule is firming up a bit, but I still have a ways to go. Although I want to hit a lot of places, it's kind of impossible to give an exact time for each place because traffic and wait times at restaurants would just throw me off anyway. So instead I'm going to give a single location and start time for each day.

Right now I only have firm plans for the first 2 stops in blue. But I'm listing the other places to give you a general idea of where I'll be.

Sunday June 29

Hi Everyone,

I'm going to be visiting a lot of pizzerias in the next few weeks and I'd love for you to join me. We'll be eating and taking a few more photos for the website.

Coming up with an exact schedule is proving to be more difficult than I had imagined. So here is what I have done. I've created 2 Google Maps:

Map 1 closely mirrors the big list on my website. This list shows

· Places I’ve already visited and can recommend, Green for Tier 1 and Red for Tier 2.

· Places in yellow I intend to visit someday because multiple people have suggested them or they have a great reputation

Most of the places I visit on this trip will be from this main map.

Map 2 is places that fans have suggested, but usually these are one-off suggestions. So I don't really have independent verification that these places are really very good. They don't appear on the big list on my main website. Time won't allow me to hit them all but since some are on the way, I'd like to try as many as I can. Since most of you are from these areas, check out the list and if you know a place and want to put in a good word or dissuade me from it, drop me a note at Jeff@Think2020.com with the phrase 'Tour Review' in the subject line. That will help a ton.

So how are we going to meet up? I'm probably going to have to make some last minute decisions about where I'll be. So I'm going to keep updating this page. I'm creating an email list to let people know about updates. If you got to this page because I sent you an email, you are already on the list. Drop me a note if you want to be removed. If you navigated to this page from my website, then email me at Jeff@Think2020.com and put "Pizza Tour" in the subject line and I'll put you on the list.

I'm going to try to give as much advance notice as possible, but it might be that I have to post up a schedule the day beforehand. I'll do the best I can.

Hope to see ya soon,

Jeff Varasano