For decades, outsiders looking at Chicago pizza suffered from a massive misconception. Mention the city’s pie to a tourist, and they will almost invariably picture a towering, tourist-beckoning deep-dish pie packed with heavy layers of cheese and chunky tomato sauce. But for locals growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, that heavy, knife-and-fork affair was never the reality of everyday life.
According to Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor, the couple behind Proof in Portland, Oregon, pizza back home was simply "thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough," as Brittany recalls of her family’s Friday night traditions. While deep-dish might grab the headlines and draw the long lines of out-of-town visitors, it was always reserved for rare occasions. The pizza you actually ate every week, the one ordered for kids’ birthday parties, little league celebrations, and casual Friday nights, was always the thin-crust style.
Today, that linguistic and culinary landscape has shifted dramatically on a national scale. The phrase "thin-crust" has largely given way to the more widely recognized designation of "tavern-style," a regional Midwestern pizza phenomenon that has swept across the United States from coast to coast over the past few years.
Tavern-style pizza—which is deeply prevalent across the entire Midwest, with Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis all championing their own distinct iterations—is defined by its signature characteristics. It features a thin, cracker-like, ultra-crisp crust that is famously sliced into a lattice grid of small squares rather than traditional triangular wedges. Depending on the specific region or the particular nostalgia of a hometown pizza shop, the tomato sauce might lean sweet or spicy, but lightness and crispness remain the style’s ultimate selling points.
Writing for Esquire in 2023, critic Omar Mamoon described the rising variant as a direct "foil" to the famously thick Detroit-style pizza, which had enjoyed its own massive moment in the spotlight during the late 2010s.
The true genius of the tavern-style pie lies in its inherent shareability and social utility. A round pizza yields significantly more individual portions when cut into a grid rather than triangles, explains Bradley Shorten, the culinary force behind 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 small squares makes for premier drinking food, particularly because a single piece can easily fit on a cocktail napkin during a lively night out.
According to Shorten, the mark of a truly great tavern-style pie is that every single square features a balanced bite of every ingredient, with the toppings and cheese extending all the way to the absolute edge of the crust. And while the four small, crust-heavy corner squares might not technically be the "best" pieces from a purist standpoint, Shorten notes that they are unfailingly the pieces "everybody goes for," especially among expats from Chicago who grew up fighting over them.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become growing fixations for a new cadre of restaurateurs, the "party cut" pizza and its accompanying dining culture have become 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 never gone out of style. For many displaced Chicagoans, these new openings across the country represent a long-overdue opportunity to correct the national record about their city’s true pizza culture, while other Midwesterners are eager to claim their own stake in the region’s rich pie history.
The evolutionary path of tavern-style pizza resembles a culinary game of telephone, notes Mike Fadem, who opened a second location of his popular New York City pizzeria Ops. Ops is traditionally known for its wood-fired, Neapolitan-esque pies featuring leopard-spotted crusts and pliant dough, but when Fadem wanted to offer something new, he looked to his roots.
Fadem grew up in St. Louis, where the local signature pizza is rolled out exceptionally thin. Despite his deep childhood affection for it, Fadem readily admits that "it’s maybe not the best version of tavern pizza," pointing out the recipe’s polarizing reputation among critics who take issue with its heavy reliance on Provel, a gooey processed cheese product. Tracing the lineage, Fadem explains that St. Louis-style pizza is ultimately derived from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself traces its lineage back to the original Neapolitan pies of Italy, with distinct divergences occurring at every single geographic jump.
Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s employees at Ops hails from New Jersey, a state that proudly claims its own storied tradition of thin-crust, tavern- or bar-style pizza, much like the fiercely defended bar pies of the Boston area. Inspired by these diverse regional traditions, Fadem began asking himself if they could create an Ops-specific interpretation. Given that Ops is already celebrated for its sourdough expertise, Fadem wanted to highlight the rich, complex flavor of whole grains while achieving an intense crispness that he knew would captivate New Yorkers.
Fadem’s eventual creation was added to the menu under the regionally agnostic name "tavernetta." Though St. Louis and New Jersey served as the initial conceptual sparks, Fadem notes that some of the best research-backed inspiration came from Milwaukee. Rather than replacing the restaurant’s existing menu items, the Tavernetta is typically ordered alongside them, with most dining groups opting to add at least one to their table.
This emphasis on communal dining ties directly into the social atmosphere of the tavern itself. In June, Los Angeles cocktail destination Bar Next Door celebrated its third anniversary by officially expanding its operations to include a food menu. Previously, the bar had maintained a symbiotic relationship with Prince Street Pizza next door, allowing patrons to bring neighboring slices into the lounge because Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is a partner in the bar.
However, bar owner and beverage director Brynn Smith recognized a logistical hurdle in the arrangement. After finishing a heavy slice of New York-style pizza, customers often felt too full and decided to call it a night. The primary goal for Bar Next Door was to encourage patrons to linger a little longer and enjoy another round of drinks. Smith realized that tavern-style pizza would be the ideal vehicle to achieve that. The pizzas—cleverly listed on the menu as "bar pies" to better align with the establishment’s name—are made exclusively for the cocktail lounge by Prince Street, giving patrons yet another compelling reason to spend their evening out.
The concept of the neighborhood tavern as a warm, convivial social space is fundamentally inseparable from the food it serves. Shorten’s primary vision for 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. They envisioned a space defined by wood-paneled walls and checkered floors, where guests could easily slide into a worn red leather booth, order pitchers of beer and square-cut pizza, and settle in for a long evening of socialization.
The rising appeal of this cozy "tavern" aesthetic across restaurants nationwide is rooted in a collective desire for spaces that feel genuinely homey, unpretentious, and lived-in. At these establishments, diners are actively encouraged to sprawl out, drop their guard, and embrace a welcoming familiarity. For millions of people, that feeling is perfectly embodied by the archetype of the hometown pizza shop, an institution forever tethered in the cultural imagination to the comforts of a simpler era.
It is precisely this deep-seated nostalgia that inspired the Grosvenors in Oregon to expand their menu beyond pizza, adding their own takes on Bosco sticks—the nostalgic stuffed breadsticks found in Midwestern school cafeterias—and Italian beef sandwiches piled high with giardiniera. While they could track down certain Midwestern staples around Portland, they were frequently frustrated by the inability to find everything authentic to their memories under one roof. As Brennan Grosvenor puts it, they are simply trying to capture the authentic feeling of walking into a neighborhood tavern back home and knowing that everything you could possibly crave is waiting for you on the menu.