When The Hell Did A Slice Pie Become 14 Inches?

Maybe I missed a meeting.

Maybe while I was busy cooking, working, raising kids and generally not paying attention to whatever fresh indignity America had planned for food, somebody got all the pizza guys together and decided:

Well.

I fucking noticed.

I’m a New Yorker. We notice these things.

A New York-style pizza slice is supposed to be big. Unreasonably big. Bigger than the cheap white paper plate they hand it to you on.

The tip hangs over the edge. The cheese threatens to slide off. You fold the thing because you practically have to.

That’s a slice.

Then I started looking around South Carolina.

Twelve-inch pies. Fourteen-inch pies.

And they’re cutting these things into slices.

Slices?

That’s adorable.

A 14-inch pizza contains about 154 square inches of pizza.

An 18-inch pizza contains about 254.

That’s roughly 65% more pizza.

Sixty-five fucking percent.

This isn’t shrinkflation where somebody quietly takes three Oreos out of the package and hopes you’re too busy watching Netflix to notice.

You took a third of my goddamn lunch.

And then you charged me five bucks for the slice.

I’m not naming names. You know who you are.

Fourteen-inch pie sitting in the display case, cut into eight little triangles, five bucks a pop.

I’m sure it’s delicious.

It’s just not a fucking New York slice.

There are certain contracts civilization makes with ordinary people.

A hot dog at a baseball game. Coffee in a diner. A beer after work.

And in New York:

That’s lunch.

Not the beginning of lunch. Not something you eat before ordering wings because the slices were the approximate dimensions of hotel coasters.

Lunch.

Wall Street guy? Two slices.

Construction worker? Two slices.

Cop? Two slices.

Hungover line cook who spent half his shift promising God he’d never drink again?

Definitely two slices.

That was the beauty of pizza by the slice. It was cheap, fast, democratic and filling.

Nobody needed the concept explained to them.

Here’s the uncomfortable part.

I’m a restaurant guy. I know exactly why you did it.

Dough costs money. Cheese really costs money. Pepperoni costs money. Labor costs money. Rent costs money. Boxes cost money.

The fucking guy who comes twice a year to spray behind the refrigerator costs money.

Take four inches off the pizza and suddenly the spreadsheet starts smiling.

Less dough. Less sauce. Less cheese. Less toppings. Better margins.

Congratulations. Your accountant loves your pizza.

There’s just one small problem.

You fucked up the slice.

A 14-inch pizza can be fantastic. So can a 12-inch pizza.

Call it artisan pizza. Call it Neapolitan-inspired. Put burrata on it. Drizzle it with hot honey. Photograph it next to a fucking succulent for Instagram.

I’ll probably eat it.

I love pizza.

Just don’t cut one-eighth of a 14-inch pie, put it on a paper plate and tell me that’s a New York slice.

I’ve seen a New York slice.

I’ve eaten thousands of the bastards.

And that ain’t it.

Maybe that’s really what’s happening here.

One day you’re young and eating pizza at two in the morning.

The next you’re standing in South Carolina arguing about pizza diameters like somebody’s grandfather complaining that Coca-Cola used to cost a nickel.

Food does that to you.

It sneaks memory into places you weren’t expecting it.

A smell. A corner. A paper plate. That particular crunch when you fold a slice.

Suddenly you’re home.

So maybe I’m overly sensitive about those four missing inches.

Fine.

Some things are worth being unreasonable about.

And if you’re looking for New York-style pizza in Summerville, here’s the hill we’re choosing to die on:

A slice should be big, hot, affordable, slightly dangerous to a clean shirt and hanging halfway off the goddamn plate.

Because two slices should still be lunch.

I’m not ready to renegotiate that particular contract.