About two years ago, I pitched the idea of hosting a Chron competition to celebrate the pizza brilliance of Austin, a big small town more widely known for its taco and barbecue accomplishments than its gooey, cheesy pies. But seriously, Brooklyn, Detroit, and Chicago aren’t the only cities with a star-studded pizza roster: Austin is now home to more than 40 local pizza shops boasting the best slices and pies handcrafted in every style we crave. Thin and crispy, Neapolitan, deep dish, coal-fired – you name it, someone in town is making it.
And while everyone agreed it was a must-do project, as is usually the case with a small-business skeleton crew, the pie graph was pushed back and bumped until finally, 2020 rolled around, full of promise and sparkly new waters. (We laugh in hindsight, but remember the wide-eyed optimism of New Year’s Eve?) Then, of course, the novel coronavirus shut down everything, deeply wounding the restaurant industry. Our mission became laser-focused: We must share our huge admiration for this part of the pizza galaxy while trying to uplift our beloved local food scene. So, game on! Thanks to the creative geniuses we know here on Earth as Jason Stout (Art Director) and Zeke Barbaro (Production Manager), we were thrilled to announce in late May that finally, our little pizza dream came true: Pie Fighters was launched!
The plan, put simply: We announced the names of more than 40 contenders. Then, as you’ll see in this very issue, we offer small write-ups about each of the pizza spots, allowing you, the readers, to vote online and select the top 10 finalists. From that finalist list, our newspaper fans/pizza lovers will crown their favorite as the overall champion, and we’ll do a profile on the winner in the following issue.
Mere days after we first announced Pie Fighters, the world shifted again, tragically, with the murder of George Floyd ushering in a new era of historic civil engagement as protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement took to the streets across the globe. In an effort not to distract from that ongoing critical conversation about systemic racism, and to ensure our readers know we, too, feel the urgency of this time, we postponed Pie Fighters to make way. And while we are certainly aware that our country, our city, our entire damn solar system, really, has hard work ahead that won’t be completed anytime soon, we do hope you’ll understand our decision to proceed on this part of our mission.
So here we are in mid-June, only halfway through the strangest, most difficult year of many of our lives. But if there’s one thing that remains constant, in a positive way, it’s pizza. No matter what kind of crust you prefer or whether your cheese is vegan or your sauce is extra, there’s something powerful about joining forces to share a pie, and a conversation, with a fellow pizza fan.– Jessi Cape less
This article appears in June 19 • 2020.