Is Our Love of Pizza Over?
In addition to writing a weekly newsletter I subscribe to a few as well. The headline in a recent one was, "Are We Eating Less Pizza?". The article included lots of data that pizza sales at least in restaurants and delivery places have been dropping, as have the number of pizzeria locations. One of the articles they linked to was this one in the Wall Street Journal.
One of the things they pointed out was the number of pizza places peaked in 2019 and since then have declined while other cuisines have risen. While I'm not going to say there is a lot of lazy reporting going on here I have other thoughts. I would say that Sh%$! pizza is on the decline and there is more appreciation than ever for high quality pizza.
When we moved into our home in Templeton the first thing I did was build a pizza oven with a friend made from fire bricks. The process took a couple months and the oven might weigh over a couple of tons. We have enjoyed it immensely, but it's a project to use - takes a day to heat up and uses a lot of wood. When I built the oven there were scant options for home pizza ovens. Fast forward 15 years later and there are hundreds. Reviews are easy to find. If I'm cooking pizza at home not for a group I have a full-time thick pizza stone in my oven and just cook on that at the highest heat my oven will do. This works pretty darn good too.
I've touched on this before, but I feel it's safe to say that for many of our customers Etto has become their home pizza headquarters. So many of you have a such a strong pizza game why would you order out? I rarely eat chain pizza, only when I come across it somewhere, but wouldn't ever buy it. I know that the pizza I make at home is light years better with high quality ingredients and made just the way I like it. If you want to eat pizza out somewhere hit up a place like Lebber's in Atascadero, Bear and the Wren or My Friend Mike's in SLO. I'm sure you have your favorite.
By our most recent count we have over 50 pizza components at Etto. We stock pizza flour, dough balls and par cooked pinsa crust. We carry a variety of toppings like the world's best pepperoni to more obscure like Calabrian cherry peppers (my fave) and a huge variety of anchovies including white ones and spicy too. Here's a handy order guide to just some of our most popular items.
I can assure you that my pizza consumption has not decreased and the love is still real, but my standards over the years have certainly increased and I'm not alone. Sunday night we enjoyed a pizza at home with olive oil, speck, arugula and burrata. Try ordering that from one of the delivery chains. With that, let's celebrate my two favorite foods pizza and pasta, but not necessarily in that order.
