Randall’s Island Park turned into pizza heaven when more than 35 pizzerias nationwide showcased their distinct variety of old-fashioned, Trenton tomato and Sicilian-style pies at the second annual One Bite Pizza festival, Sep. 14.
On a sunny Saturday, Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports and the popular One Bite Pizza Reviews, a Youtube channel with more than one million subscribers, hosted the festival’s second edition. What started as a pizza review channel ten years ago, drew more than 10,000 people to the wildly popular Governor’s Ball music festival.
“As far as you can see, you think you are at LollaPalooza, and they are here to eat pizza; it’s nuts,” Portnoy said. “I guess if you eat pizza every day for ten years straight, you build a crowd. It’s pretty wild.”
Based in New Jersey, Coniglio’s pizzeria made around 300 pizzas and used more than 500 pounds of cheese and about 500 doughs for the festival. Although it was a hard effort for just one day, Nino Coniglio, the restaurant manager, appreciated opportunities like this.
“We get our whole community together, all in one place […] they have a good time,” he said. “And it’s an important thing because you are not coming to one of these [events] unless you really [care.]”
Matthew Rossa, Angeloni’s pizza manager, echoed that pizza passion.
“It’s the second year we’ve been here. We know how it runs; we’re pumping pizza out fast.” he said. “People have come around twice or three times saying we’re the best pizza, so we are excited to be here again.”
Every pizza place had something to offer beyond the traditional cheese pie, Sicilian style, or pepperoni slices: history and tradition.
“Our culture is just tradition at its core, so we’ve been making the pies the same way since 1938 with a nice amount of sauce, charred but not burnt and crispy. When that all comes together, it really creates this magical bite,” said Bret Lunsford, Sally’s pizza executive chef and beloved pizza fan, who has a pepperoni slice tattoo on his right arm. “Any festival like this is always great, and what Dave and One Bite has done for our community has been fantastic. It’s really put pizza on the map.”
Whether for its texture, flavor or how they make the pizzas, the businesses that participated in the event have spent decades of hard work that made them experts in what they do.
“We do everything right the way that Frank Pepe did. In 2025, we’ll celebrate 100 years of pizza family business. We started with a coal-fire oven and [now] those ovens are custom-made for all of our locations,” said Kevin Printz, CEO of Franz Pepe pizzeria, headquartered in New Heaven, CT. “We currently have 17 locations, but it’d take us a schematic from the original oven.”
From people who traveled from Chicago and Connecticut to a group of active military who made a 12-hour drive from North Carolina, they came all the way around to taste the variety of slices and give positive feedback to the pizza makers.
“It’s the best day ever, we saw Dave [Portnoy] right when we walked in,” Sydney, an attendee and owner of the food instagram page eatwmee, said. “It was the best moment of my life, honestly. We’re happy to be here. We are trying to get at least 15 [slices.]”
