Just about every type of pizza imaginable can be found in New York City, and the Detroit Square is no exception.
Detroit-style pizza is similar to the Sicilian pies and Grandma pies common to the five boroughs. The Grandma slice, originally developed at Umberto's in New Hyde Park on Long Island, shares many attributes with the Detroit square like the crispy crust and fluffy interior. So it should come as no surprise that the Detroit Square has found a big audience in the Big Apple. But, when did New York start selling pizza from the Motor City?
It all started about a decade ago when Shawn Randazzo, a Detroit-born pizzaiolo entered the pizza-making competition at the International Pizza Expo in 2012. Held in Las Vegas, the exhibition is the largest pizza show in the world and features thousands of vendors, restaurant owners, pizza makers, and pizza enthusiasts.
Randazzo had been making Detroit-style square pizzas for years, entering them into regional pizza-making contests. Usually, his pies were unique in shape and texture. Then everything changed in 2012. That year he was named World Champion Pizza Maker igniting a new interest in Detroit-Style pizza.
Here's where New Yorkers can find a slice of Detroit-style pizza.
Lions & Tigers and Squares
Named for Detroit's sports teams and as a nod to the Wizard of Oz, this square-pie pizzeria was developed by the owners of Artichoke Pizza, a local, New York City chain that first launched in the East Village in 2008. At Artichoke Pizza, the namesake pie is topped with butter, artichoke hearts, spinach, cream sauce, and mozzarella cheese. A decade after first opening, Artichoke had expanded beyond the original location into a mini-chain, and co-founder Francis Garcia decided to start several experimental pizzeria projects. Lions and Tigers and Squares was the result, churning out pan-pizza with a crispy crust and "upside down" sauce – sauce on top of the cheese – just like Detroit pizzerias. His other project, the Big Ragu, serving Milan-inspired pizza wasn't as successful.
Emmy Squared
(Photo Credit: Sarah Stierch via flickr)
Founders Emily Hyland and Matthew Hyland had previously opened a New Haven-style pizzeria, Emily Loves Pizza, in south Brooklyn. And after receiving much acclaim, they decided to open the Williamsburg, Brooklyn location of Emmy Squared in 2016. The restaurant focused on square-sliced Detroit-style pizza but with a Brooklyn-esque twist. In addition to traditional pizza toppings, the menu includes some modern combinations like the Colony, a pepperoni pie with jalapeños and honey, or the Seoul Mate with kimchi and sausage. Emmy Squared has since expanded to other cities – and their expansion plans riled investors who were cut out of the profits from the additional restaurants. A year after the first restaurant opened, Eater reported they were sued. The pizza, however, is still delicious.
Slice Joint
Slice Joint is the creation of chef Rachael Marie who learned her craft working in Roberta's, the Brooklyn pizzeria that helped usher in a new era of upscale Neapolitan pies. Slice Joint opened in Market Line, the branded food hall that is part of Essex Crossing in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
The neighborhood had once been home to Italian and Jewish immigrants – it’s just a few blocks from New York City's Tenement Museum – but several blocks of land just south of the Williamsburg Bridge had been cleared of those tenements decades ago. The empty lots had been vacant until the redevelopment known as Essex Crossing brought luxury high-rise apartments to the area. In the base of the one building, a new Essex Market was built, clearing the way for the Essex Market to be demolished. The original Essex Market, just across Delancey Street, was a product of Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia's program to move street vendors indoors. Many of these peddlers were originally Italian immigrants.
Fast forward to the end of 2019, when the Market Line first opened. Weeks before the pandemic shutdowns, the new food hall opened with many local businesses including Slice Joint, specializing in two styles of pizza: classic New York Slices and Detroit-style squares. Slice Joint's squares are a hybrid of the Detroit style and New York's Grandma slices, but they have a crispy crust and caramelized cheese. Shortly after opening in New York, Slice Joint also opened a Washington D.C. location.
Jet's Pizza
In some respects, Jet's Pizza is the only genuine Detroit-style pizza available in New York City. The chain started out in the Detroit Metro area back in 1978 when the style of pizza was still mostly known simply as a square-shape pan pizza. There are now hundreds of locations in more than twenty states with three in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn.
Prince Street
Plenty of people will say Prince Street pizza is NOT Detroit-style pizza, but rather a Sicilian pizza baked in a shallow pan with crispy edges. Sound familiar? Just like Detroit pizza, it has a crispy crust along the edge and a light interior. The shop opened in 2012, at the same time Detroit-style pies were becoming popular around the country. Basically, this is Detroit-style pizza even if nobody acknowledges it. Frank and Dominic Morano opened their pizzeria in the location of the original Ray's Pizza, the famous one that spawned so many imitators it's nearly impossible to keep track. Since then, Prince Street has expanded to other cities too, capitalizing on the success of Detroit-style pizza, even if they insist that they aren't making Detroit-style. Morano first grabbed attention in 2013 as a vocal opponent of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban on oversized sodas. Then in 2021, he and his son stepped aside from the growing pizzeria empire after heated comments online. Today, the shop continues to have a long line of would-be pizza eaters.
Ian MacAllen
Ian MacAllen is America Domani's Senior Correspondent and the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American. He is a writer, editor, and graphic designer living in Brooklyn. Connect with him at IanMacAllen.com or on Twitter @IanMacAllen.