In the leafy suburbs of Chicago where Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor grew up, pizza was never a complicated culinary philosophy; it was simply a Friday night given. Ordering dinner always boiled down to a familiar family debate: thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough, as Brittany recalls of her childhood traditions in the Midwest. Today, the Grosvenors channel those memories at Proof, their pizzeria in Portland, Oregon. While they sell the thin-crust style of their youth, the vernacular has shifted. The regional shorthand of "thin crust" has given way to the nationally recognized phrase "tavern-style," reflecting a booming pizza trend that has swept from coast to coast over recent years.
For outsiders, the culinary identity of Chicago is often inextricably linked to its famous, towering deep-dish pizza, a tourist-beckoning heavyweight of cheese and chunky tomato sauce. But Brittany points out that this tourist-facing icon is simply not reflective of everyday reality. Deep dish, she notes, is reserved for much less frequent treats, whereas the Midwestern thin-crust style reigns supreme in daily life. The pizza you actually get every week, or encounter at a child’s birthday party, is almost always tavern-style.
This ubiquitous pie is prevalent across the broader Midwest, with Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis all touting their own variations of similar thin-crust circles. Tavern-style pizza is traditionally defined by its cracker-like, ultra-crisp crust and its distinct "party cut"—sliced into a grid of small squares instead of traditional triangular wedges. Depending on the region and the specific nostalgia of the neighborhood joint, the sauce might lean sweet or spicy. Yet, the style’s ultimate selling point remains its lightness and crunch. Writing for Esquire in 2023, critic Omar Mamoon described the variant—then still ascending in national prominence—as a direct foil to the famously thick Detroit-style square pizza, which had enjoyed its own massive cultural moment in the late 2010s.
The inherent genius of the tavern-style pie lies entirely in its shareability. A circular pizza yields significantly more portions when cut into a grid than into traditional 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, bite-sized squares makes for exceptional drinking food, largely because a square can easily rest on a cocktail napkin. According to Shorten, the hallmark of a truly great pie is that every single square features a balanced distribution of ingredients, with toppings extending all the way to the very edge of the crust. And while the four small, crust-heavy corner squares might not objectively be the "best" pieces from a technical standpoint, Shorten notes they are invariably the ones everyone fights for, especially diners hailing from Chicago.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become growing fixations for a new cadre of restaurateurs, party-cut pizzas and dedicated tavern-style spots have become ubiquitous across the American dining landscape. 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 Zarella alongside Dimmi Dimmi Corner Italian in Chicago, where the style has never truly left the spotlight. For displaced Chicagoans, these nationwide openings offer a welcome opportunity to correct the broader public record regarding their city’s true pizza culture, while other Midwesterners seize the chance to claim their own stake in the region’s rich baking history.
When Mike Fadem opened the second location of his popular New York City pizzeria Ops—an establishment celebrated for its wood-fired, Neapolitan-esque pies featuring leopard-spotted crusts and pliant dough—he felt a distinct urge to offer something completely different. Fadem is a native of St. Louis, a city famous for its own ultra-thin style of local pizza. Despite his deep-seated fondness for it, Fadem readily admits that it might not objectively be the finest version of tavern pizza, acknowledging its vocal critics who take particular issue with its reliance on provel, a gooey, processed cheese blend. The evolutionary trajectory of tavern-style pizza, he explains, resembles a classic game of telephone: St. Louis-style pizza directly derives from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself traces its lineage back to traditional Neapolitan roots, with noticeable divergence occurring at every single historical jump.
Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s kitchen employees at Ops hailed from New Jersey, a state that proudly claims its own storied tradition of thin-crust tavern and bar-style pizzas, much like the devoted following enjoyed by the distinct bar pies of the Boston area. Inspired by these overlapping culinary traditions, Fadem began exploring a new idea: whether Ops could successfully execute its own signature version of the style. Given that Ops is widely known for its mastery of sourdough, Fadem also wanted to highlight the complex, rich flavor profile of whole grains, while ensuring the crust achieved an intense crispiness that he knew would captivate New Yorkers. The resulting creation was added to the menu under the regionally agnostic moniker "tavernetta." Though St. Louis and New Jersey served as his initial conceptual inspiration, Fadem notes that the most remarkable examples discovered during his exhaustive research were ultimately found in Milwaukee. Rather than replacing the restaurant’s existing menu items, the tavernetta is frequently ordered as a secondary pie by groups eager to sample something crisp alongside their sourdough favorites.
The broader revival of tavern culture extends beyond standalone pizzerias into the beverage world. In June, Los Angeles cocktail destination Bar Next Door celebrated its third anniversary by expanding its operations to include a dedicated food menu. Previously, the bar had permitted patrons to bring in hot pies from Prince Street Pizza next door, given that Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is a partner in the venture. However, bar owner and beverage director Brynn Smith observed the limitations of heavy, thick-crust slices in a drinking environment. After consuming a heavy slice, guests often felt uncomfortably full, signaling that it was time to head home to bed. The primary business objective for Bar Next Door was to encourage patrons to linger a little longer and enjoy another round of drinks, making tavern-style pizza the ideal culinary companion. The fact that these pizzas—listed specifically on the menu as "bar pies" to complement the establishment’s moniker—are crafted exclusively for the bar by Prince Street adds yet another compelling reason for locals to venture out for an evening.
The fundamental concept of the tavern as a warm, social, and convivial space remains completely inseparable from the cultural appeal of tavern-style pizza. When Bradley Shorten and his wife Meg Schmitt—who grew up in St. Louis—opened La Merna in Washington, D.C., their explicit goal was to recreate the unpretentious atmosphere of a classic Chicago dive bar or a traditional Wisconsin supper club. They envisioned a space characterized by dark wood-paneled walls and checkered floors, where patrons could comfortably slide into red leather booths, order pitchers of beer alongside shared pizzas, and settle in for an unhurried evening.
As observers of modern dining trends have noted, the rising popularity of the tavern aesthetic across restaurants nationwide is deeply rooted in a collective desire for spaces that feel genuinely homey, lived-in, and authentic. Inside traditional taverns, diners are implicitly invited to sprawl out, stay awhile, shed everyday pretense, and tap into something deeply comforting in its familiarity. For millions of Americans, this feeling is perfectly embodied by the cultural archetype of the hometown pizza joint—a neighborhood institution forever tethered in the national imagination to the simplicity of a bygone era.
It is precisely this nostalgic impulse that has inspired the Grosvenors in Oregon to introduce their own regional interpretations of classic Midwestern comfort foods, including Bosco sticks—the iconic stuffed cheese breadsticks of Midwestern school cafeterias—and Italian beef sandwiches piled high with spicy giardiniera. While the couple could occasionally source certain Midwestern staples around Portland, they often found themselves frustrated by the inability to find everything authentic under one roof. As Brennan Grosvenor explains, their mission is simply to capture an authentic atmosphere: if you walked into a neighborhood tavern in Chicago, what would you expect to order there?
