For decades, anyone ordering a pie in the suburbs of Chicago faced a straightforward vernacular. According to Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor, the couple behind Proof in Portland, Oregon, the culinary landscape of their youth came down to a simple family debate on Friday nights. Ordering pizza meant choosing between thin-crust, deep-dish, or double-dough. Today, the Grosvenors still sell that iconic thin-crust style at Proof, though the language has shifted to match a broader national phenomenon. The familiar phrasing of their childhood has given way to “tavern-style,” the distinctive Midwestern pizza trend that has quietly and rapidly swept across the United States from coast to coast.
While outsiders and tourists often associate the Windy City with its towering, knife-and-fork deep-dish pizza, locals know that image is largely a tourist-beckoning myth. Brittany Grosvenor points out that deep dish is reserved for rare occasions or out-of-town guests, rather than the regular weekly routine. Instead, the pizza that defines Midwestern life—whether ordered for a casual Friday night dinner or piled high at a child’s birthday party—is invariably tavern-style.
This style, which is deeply rooted across the Midwest with regional variations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis, is defined by several unmistakable characteristics. It features a thin, cracker-like crust that bakes up exceptionally crisp and light. Rather than being cut into traditional triangular wedges, a tavern-style pie is sliced into a lattice grid, creating a mosaic of small squares often referred to as a “party cut.” Depending on the specific neighborhood or the nostalgic preferences of a particular 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 variant—which was then steadily climbing in national prominence—as a direct foil to the famously thick Detroit-style square pizza that dominated culinary conversations in the late 2010s.
The beauty of the tavern-style pie lies fundamentally in its shareability. Because a round pizza yields significantly more portions when sliced into a grid rather than wedges, it serves as the ultimate social food. Bradley Shorten, the creative force behind Kim’s Uncle Pizza in his hometown Chicago suburb of Westmont, Illinois, and the recently opened La Merna in Washington, D.C., notes that square-cut pizza makes for premier drinking food precisely because the small pieces fit easily onto a cocktail napkin.
According to Shorten, the mark of a truly great tavern-style pie is that every single square receives a balanced share of ingredients, with toppings extending all the way to the very edge of the crispy crust. And while the four small, crust-heavy corner squares might not technically be the best pieces on the tray, Shorten acknowledges that they are invariably the ones everyone fights for, particularly diners with deep Chicago roots.
Over the past few years, as neighborhood taverns have become a growing fixation for a new wave of restaurateurs, party-cut pizzas and tavern-style spots have become ubiquitous fixtures in major culinary scenes. Recent 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 thrived in abundance. For displaced Chicagoans, these new openings across the country offer a long-awaited opportunity to correct the record regarding their hometown’s true pizza culture, while other Midwesterners proudly claim their own distinct stakes in the region’s expansive pizza heritage.
The evolution of the style has seen fascinating cross-pollination. When Mike Fadem opened the second location of his popular New York City pizzeria Ops—a spot famously known for its wood-fired, Neapolitan-esque pies featuring leopard-spotted crusts and pliant dough—he wanted to introduce something entirely fresh. Fadem hails from St. Louis, where the local style features a paper-thin crust. Despite his lifelong affection for it, Fadem admits that it may not be the definitive version of tavern pizza, noting that the St. Louis iteration often faces gentle criticism, particularly regarding its traditional use of Provel, a gooey processed cheese.
Fadem explains that the broader trajectory of tavern-style pizza resembles a game of telephone. St. Louis pizza evolved from thin-crust Chicago pizza, which itself traces its lineage back to traditional Neapolitan pizza. With every geographic and cultural jump, distinct divergences occurred.
Meanwhile, one of Fadem’s employees at Ops originated from New Jersey, a state with its own fiercely defended tradition of thin-crust tavern and bar-style pies, much like the devoted following enjoyed by the bar pizzas of the Boston area. Inspired by these diverse regional traditions, Fadem began wondering if Ops could create its own unique interpretation. Given that Ops is widely known for its exceptional sourdough, Fadem wanted to highlight the rich, complex flavors of whole grains while achieving an intense, shatteringly crisp crust that he knew would captivate New Yorkers.
The resulting creation appears on the menu under the regionally agnostic name “tavernetta.” Although St. Louis and New Jersey served as the initial conceptual inspiration, Fadem notes that the ultimate benchmark for his research ultimately pointed toward Milwaukee. The Tavernetta has not replaced the other sourdough pies at the restaurant; instead, it is frequently ordered as a complement, with most dining groups adding at least one to their table.
The appetite for this style is not limited to dedicated pizzerias. In June, Los Angeles cocktail lounge Bar Next Door celebrated its third anniversary by expanding its offerings to include a dedicated food menu. Previously, the bar permitted patrons to bring in pies from Prince Street Pizza next door, a natural arrangement given that Prince Street co-owner Lawrence Longo is a partner in the bar.
However, bar owner and beverage director Brynn Smith realized that heavier, thick-crust slices could leave customers feeling weighed down too quickly. After having a slice, guests might feel full and decide it is time to head home. Smith notes that the primary goal for the establishment is to encourage patrons to linger a little longer and enjoy more drinks, making tavern-style pizza the ideal menu addition. The fact that these pizzas—technically listed on the menu as “bar pies” to complement the establishment’s identity—are crafted exclusively for the bar by Prince Street adds yet another compelling reason for locals to venture out for an evening.
The concept of the neighborhood tavern as a warm, social, and convivial space remains fundamentally inseparable from the tavern-style pizza itself. When Bradley Shorten and his wife Meg Schmitt—who grew up in St. Louis—opened La Merna in Washington, D.C., their primary design and culinary goal was to recreate the unpretentious atmosphere of a classic Chicago dive bar or a traditional Wisconsin supper club. They envisioned a space defined by wood-paneled walls, checkered floors, and red leather booths where guests could settle in for pitchers of beer and shared pizzas for hours at a time.
The rising appeal of this cozy, lived-in tavern aesthetic across restaurants nationwide is rooted in a desire to provide spaces that feel welcoming and free of pretense. For many diners, this comforting familiarity is best embodied by the classic hometown pizza joint, a staple that remains permanently linked in the cultural imagination to the trappings of a simpler era.
It is precisely this deep-seated nostalgia that inspired Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor to expand their offerings in Oregon to include traditional Midwestern comforts like Bosco sticks—the iconic stuffed breadsticks from school cafeterias—and Italian beef sandwiches topped with giardiniera. While they could occasionally source certain Midwestern staples around Portland, they were frequently frustrated by the inability to find everything under one roof.
As Brennan Grosvenor explains, their mission is simple: to fully embody the genuine feeling of walking into a neighborhood tavern in Chicago and knowing that everything you crave is waiting for you on the menu.
