Sally’s Apizza And The Burden Of Greatness

Our Pilgrimage To Wooster Street and Sally’s Apizza…Was It Worth The 3-Hour Wait?

I never imagined one of my first posts to this blog would be about a pilgrimage to Wooster Street, New Haven, for pizza at Sally’s.  After all, in my book, The Joy Of Grill Pizza, I urge my readers to “Forget about your pilgrimages to New Haven, New York, and Naples…the best pizza in the world is in your own backyard.”

But my friends and members of my grill pizza recipe R&D team wanted to go OUT for pizza for a change, and so I proposed The New Haven Wooster Street Pizza Experience.

I chose Sally’s.  All you Pepe’s Pizzeria fans out there, hold your comments until the end of this post.  By then, you’ll really have something to comment about.

The two pizzerias, barely two blocks apart, are a study in how people respond when the burden of greatness is thrust upon them.  Of the two, Sally’s has responded like a true artist. They are, or seem to be, totally unfazed.  They have not let fame and the promise of fortune distract them from their art.   In fact, you get the feeling they are somewhat annoyed at all the attention.

We arrived just as the restaurant was opening its doors, but we were too far back in line to get in the first seating.  So… on a hot and muggy evening we waited for two hours to get in.  People drifted into line and then drifted out.  There was a minor auto accident right in front of us.  (No one was hurt.)

Then the door opened and we were shown to our table.  Sally’s has the authentically tacky look of a pizzeria that went out of business in the 70s, but has been dusted off for one more night just for old time’s sake before the wrecking ball has its way. I can’t say I blame them. Why trade 20th century tacky for 21st century sterile? If you can keep the original long enough, it starts to give off the whiff of authenticity. Sally’s has the warm, comfortably tacky ambiance of a favorite uncle’s basement party room.  Genuine plywood paneling, drop ceilings, stained-plastic “pizza” lights, framed and autographed photos of celebrities, including Old Blue Eyes.  The most out of place object in the room was a faded pizza poster.  It was as if they hung posters of velvet Elvis paintings at the Louvre.

The staff at Sally’s is extremely laid back.  You get the feeling they all went to stress-reduction classes and were told to just relax, go about their duties, breathe deeply and slowly, and completely detach themselves from the tension and excitement of the customers.  They learned their lesson well.  This is a good thing if you like your servers calm and don’t want to be rushed.  It’s a bad thing if you expect your servers to be solicitous.

We also noticed they were in no hurry to clean up the tables and get more people into the restaurant. The look on their faces when they went to let in another lucky group of pizza pilgrims from the sweltering line outside was not the look of someone thrilled with the work of opening the doors of heaven for the faithful.  They looked kind of bored with the whole parade.

This is not meant as a criticism, just an observation.  Sally’s is the American Dream with a Southern Italian twist. When you build a better mousetrap, or a better pizza, the world will beat a path to your door. The world has beaten a path to Wooster Street and the doors of Pepe’s and Sally’s.  Sally’s has responded by continuing to turn out wonderful pizzas, but they do nothing to congratulate the pilgrim for his or her devotion, except of course serve up an incredible pizza.  They have no idea what dreams they are trafficking in, or would rather just not get into it.

It’s as if Picasso had responded to all the adulation by spitting in the eye of fame and running off to the mountains instead of cranking out umpteen paintings of cow skulls because there was a mob outside waiting to pay incredible sums for whatever his brush touched.  Sally’s would like to run off to the mountains, but they can’t.  Hemmed in by finances, tradition, or duty, they stay and make one fabulous pizza after another.

Pepe’s, on the other hand, has in the past few years enthusiastically embraced its fame and sired at least three Pepe’s Pizzerias at different high-traffic points around the state and one in New York.  I have not been to any of them, so I cannot comment on the pizza.  My last experience at the Wooster Street Pepe’s, however, was not transcendent.  I don’t blame Pepe’s.  And I don’t blame Sally’s that I walked away a bit disappointed.

It wasn’t the heat or the long wait that took the biggest toll.  It was the knowledge that, though Sally’s performance was every bit as great as it always was, something had changed in me.  It was as if I had seen behind the curtain.  I KNEW I could make pizza that was at least as good as their best, and actually better than many, if not most, of their pizzas. In my own backyard, on my grill.

Mind you, I don’t claim any special skills or talent.  You can make a better pizza than Pepe’s and Sally’s, too.  The other night, two of my friends tried a couple of the recipes in my book.  They had NEVER made grill pizza before, though they’ve had it at my house.  One of them brought home a steak to grill, too. Once he tasted the pizzas, he put the steak back in the fridge for the next day.  The pizza was too good.

Some folks might prefer standing in line at trendy restaurants.  Man does not live by pizza crust alone, after all.  Some of us are nourished by fashion  and the feeling that we are participating in something that has meaning beyond just…food.  Well, one man’s Wow! is another man’s Huh?

And then there is always the possibility that the long wait and everything else is actually worth it.

For me, someone who writes about pizza, it was worth it because I came away with something I could write about.  But would I recommend it for you?

Whenever I am assaulted by run-of-the-mill pizza, I am astonished by the fact that pizza is the most popular food on the planet.  Most pizza is god-awful.  Greasy, mushy, salty… yecccchh!

So, for many people, Sally’s, Pepe’s, and the famous joints in New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, etc. really are transcendent experiences.

But if you are one of the lucky people making unbelievably good pizza on your grill, then you might bristle at the hours-long wait for pizza that is not better than you can make at home. At least not two hours standing in line and another hour sitting hungry in a marginally air conditioned booth better.