In the Chicago suburbs where they grew up, it was simply known as pizza. For Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor, the couple behind Proof in Portland, Oregon, ordering a pie on a Friday night always boiled down to a familiar family dilemma: thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough. Brittany recalls those childhood traditions with fond clarity. Today, the Grosvenors sell the former at Proof, though the traditional Chicago-area language of "thin-crust" has naturally given way to a more nationally recognized phrase: tavern-style. Over the past few years, this unassuming, crispy regional style has swept across the United States from coast to coast, changing the landscape of American pizza culture.
While outsiders reflexively associate Chicago with its famous, towering, tourist-beckoning deep-dish pizza, Brittany explains that this image just does not reflect reality. Deep-dish, she notes, is viewed much more as an occasional, celebratory treat rather than the everyday Midwestern thin-crust style that is currently surging in popularity. The pizza you get every single week, or the one ordered by the dozen for a child’s birthday party, has always been tavern-style.
This style is prevalent across the Midwest, with cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, towns throughout Minnesota, and St. Louis all touting their own similar iterations of these pies. Tavern-style pizza is best defined by its thin, cracker-like crust, which is uniquely cut into a grid of small squares—frequently referred to as a "party cut"—instead of traditional triangular slices. Depending entirely on the specific region and the beloved local pizza shop where one’s nostalgia lies, the underlying sauce might lean sweet or spicy. However, lightness and intense crispness remain the style’s definitive selling points. Writing for Esquire in 2023, critic Omar Mamoon described the variant—which was then still 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 true beauty of the tavern-style pie lies in its inherent shareability. A pizza yields significantly more portions when cut into a grid than into standard triangles, explains Bradley Shorten, the culinary force behind both 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 exceptional drinking food, especially since it easily fits onto a cocktail napkin. According to Shorten, what makes a genuinely good pie is that every single square features a balanced bite of every ingredient, with the toppings stretching right out to the crispy edges. And while the four small, corner pieces might not technically be the "best" ones structurally, Shorten notes that they are unfailingly the pieces that everyone reaches for first, particularly if those diners happen to hail from Chicago.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become growing fixations for a cadre of restaurateurs across the country, party-cut pizzas and tavern-style establishments 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 always been abundantly available. For many displaced Chicagoans, these new openings across the country represent a long-overdue opportunity to correct the broader public record about their city’s true pizza culture. Simultaneously, it allows other Midwesterners to proudly claim their own distinct stake in the region’s diverse pizza heritage.
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 wanted to offer something entirely new to his clientele. Fadem originally hails from St. Louis, where the local namesake pizza is exceptionally thin. Despite his deep personal affection for it, Fadem admits that it is perhaps not the absolute best version of tavern pizza, pointing to the iteration’s many vocal critics who take issue with its traditional use of Provel, a gooey, highly processed cheese blend. The evolutionary trajectory of tavern-style pizza, he explains, has operated much like a long game of telephone: St. Louis-style pizza is directly derived from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself traces its lineage back to traditional Neapolitan pizza. Yet, distinct regional divergences have naturally accompanied every single geographic jump.
Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s key employees at Ops comes originally from New Jersey, a state that proudly claims its own storied, independent thin-crust tavern- or bar-style pizza tradition, much like the fiercely loyal following enjoyed by the bar pies of the Boston area. Naturally, this sparked a creative curiosity within Fadem. He began asking himself if they could successfully create an Ops version of this style. With Ops already renowned for its exceptional sourdough program, Fadem also wanted to highlight the rich, complex flavors of whole grains in the dough. Furthermore, he wanted the crust to be remarkably crispy—a textural quality he knew would instantly appeal to New Yorkers. Fadem’s unique take ultimately landed on the menu under the regionally agnostic name "tavernetta." Although St. Louis and New Jersey served as his initial sources of culinary inspiration, Fadem discovered through extensive research that the absolute best iterations of the style were actually found in Milwaukee. Today, the Tavernetta has not displaced the other pizzas at the restaurant; instead, it is routinely ordered in addition to them, with most dining groups opting to grab at least one for the table.
In June, Los Angeles cocktail lounge Bar Next Door celebrated its third operational anniversary by officially adding a food menu to its offerings. Previously, the bar had a relaxed arrangement allowing customers to bring in hot pies from Prince Street Pizza right next door, largely because Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is a partner in the bar venture. However, bar owner and beverage director Brynn Smith realized that dining dynamics needed a slight shift. After having a heavy slice of traditional pizza, guests sometimes feel too full and decide they are ready to go home and go to bed. The ultimate goal for the bar business, Smith explains, is to get patrons to stay just a little bit longer and comfortably drink more. She ultimately decided that tavern-style pizza would be the ideal menu addition. The fact that these pizzas—technically listed on the menu as "bar pies" to better align with the establishment’s nautical name—are crafted exclusively for the bar by Prince Street simply adds another compelling reason for people to go out and socialize.
The enduring idea of the tavern as a warm, social, and deeply convivial space remains utterly inseparable from the phenomenon of tavern-style pizza. Shorten’s primary goal with 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. These are spaces defined by wood-paneled walls, checkered floors, and comfortable red leather booths where patrons can settle in for pitchers of beer and shared pizzas, lingering for hours. As style writer Francky Knapp noted, the rising appeal of the "tavern" aesthetic across restaurants nationwide is deeply rooted in the universal desire to provide somewhere genuinely homey and lived-in. At these modern taverns, diners are implicitly invited to sprawl out and stay awhile, to shed pretense, and to tap into something profoundly welcoming in its familiar comfort. For so many people, this experience is best exemplified by the cultural archetype of the hometown pizza shop, which remains forever tethered in our collective imaginations to the trappings of a simpler, more communal era.
It is precisely for this reason that, back in Oregon, the Grosvenors have started serving their own regional interpretation of Bosco sticks—the iconic stuffed cheese breadsticks of Midwestern school cafeterias—alongside classic Italian beef sandwiches topped with fiery giardiniera. While the couple could occasionally track down certain isolated Midwestern hits around the Portland area, they often grew frustrated by their inability to find everything they craved under one roof. Summing up their culinary mission, Brennan Grosvenor notes that they are simply trying to authentically embody a specific feeling. If a customer walked into a classic neighborhood tavern back in Chicago, they ask themselves, what would they expect to find on the menu?
