A Saga by the Slice
One man’s quest to share the history of Columbus Pizza
Jim Ellison was five when he had his first piece of pizza.
The slice was from Dante’s, still in operation at 3586 Indianola Ave., in Clintonville. Ellison distinctly remembers looking at it and asking what it was. There was pepperoni on it—also something new—and a strong oregano flavor.
“It was a little bit of a sensory overload for me,” Ellison said.
Since then, Ellison has become, as he describes it, a gourmand—somewhere in between a glutton and a gourmet—about food in general. So much so, he built a career around it, writing for local weeklies and magazines and later for his own blog, cmhgourmand.com. He even parlayed his passion for good grub into a local tour service, Columbus Brew Adventures, which a year ago merged with Columbus Food Adventures.
But pizza has taken Ellison on his own adventure—the writer released 1,000 copies of his first book, Columbus Pizza: A Slice of History, on Nov. 9, of which the Columbus Metropolitan Library alone ordered over 30 copies. Ellison said they’re pretty close to being sold out of the first printing, which was published by American Palate.
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The sell-out is no surprise to Ellison, who believes most Columbus residents talk about three things: The weather, the Buckeyes, and pizza. While some of those folks may have impassioned debates about their favorite slices, Ellison is a team player of all the different types of pies Columbus has to offer.
“I appreciate the history of the styles, and why they are the way they are,” he said.
While Ellison features about 60 pizza places in his book, his first experiences with the saucy pie were largely relegated to Clintonville, where he spent his childhood and lived for many years following—that meant Dante’s, but also Pizza House, the defunct Franco’s, Villa Nova, and a little bit later, Iacono’s.
Each of them, Ellison said, made a pizza that was distinctly Columbus-style. That is, square- or rectangle-cut with a thin crust, and provolone instead of mozzarella, or a blend of the two. The sauce is on the sweeter side, with a decent oregano component.
Ellison believes that the square cut (or party-cut) pizza that’s ubiquitous here was inspired by a similar trend in Chicago. Specifically, one of the founders of the original pizzeria in Columbus had previously lived in Chicago and worked as a baker there.
Pizza arrived in Chicago a bit before it came to Columbus, he said, and it was a bar-style rather than the deep dish we associate with the city today. Bar owners needed a snack for their guests—it was a way to get them to stay longer. So pizzas were thin, and chopped into squares so everyone could get a piece.
In Columbus, this new trend was likely enjoyed mostly by high school students, who came in packs to eat the party-style pieces at the first pizzeria located at Fifth and Northstar—right between Upper Arlington and Grandview high schools.
“There’s all these things that drove this to be the way that it is,” Ellison said.
Ellison found he wasn’t the only one curious about the history and origins of Columbus-style pizza. An early post about the topic on his blog delivered the largest number of page views he ever had. People are still leaving comments on his post years later, he said.
The public’s interest in local pizza history is evident in other ways as well. When Ellison created a pizza and beer tour for Columbus Brew Adventures, which ran from 2013 through the end of 2019, people told him to write a book about his pizza knowledge.
It was something he had previously attempted.
In 2005, he was contracted to write a world history of pizza. He began researching and outlining, only for the company to choose a different editor and writing team based in Chicago.
Shortly after, in 2006, he got the greenlight from a different company to write another book, this one about regional sandwiches across the country. He got the first chapter done, and then the company promptly went out of business.
When he talked to his friend and former employee, Curt Schieber, about Schieber’s own struggles completing a book about the history of Columbus beer, Ellison began considering something similar with pizza.
“That had planted a little bit of the seed in my mind,” he said.
He finally found the free time to embark on the book in December 2018. Ellison focused on mom-and-pop pizzerias owned by generations of family members in Columbus and, in talking to them, he began noticing similar themes.
First, he discovered almost all the original pizzeria owners played golf together at the American Italian Golf Club in Columbus.
“They’re competitors, but they’re also collaborators in some ways, too,” he said.
Second, he kept hearing about a man named Ritchie DiPaolo who began a food distribution company that took off in 1957. DiPaolo’s company supplied pizza chains here in their infancy, and did much to support and grow the businesses, Ellison said.
DiPaolo’s influence can still be seen in the type of pepperoni used in Columbus pizza. He’s the reason pizza here typically has provolone instead of mozzarella, and he’s also behind the popularity of banana peppers as a topping.
Last, he found that many pizzerias had their roots in small, tightly knit Italian neighborhoods that grew in Columbus from the 1920s to 1950s.
When he finally published his book, he found the interest in local pizza expanded beyond the city limits. While Columbus residents were the majority of those who purchased his book, Ellison said it’s also been popular statewide, as well as in Florida. At least a couple purchases have been made in about two thirds of states across the country.
And perhaps most notable, Ellison’s book is now being sold via the Pizza Resource Center, a website run by Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
Over the course of his book research, Ellison ended up discovering a couple of pizza places he never knew existed. One was Terita’s on Cleveland Avenue, located not far from where he grew up; it’s now one of the most popular pizzas in the city. The other was Josie’s Pizza, whose original location in Franklinton dates to 1959.
As Ellison began working with more and more small pizzerias for his book, he recognized the threat the pandemic represented to the preservation of small pizza shops. He realized his book could create some visibility that might help drive business they otherwise wouldn’t get.
“This could help some of the businesses stay in business,” he said.
You can order the book on Amazon.com as well as Barnes & Noble. Follow Ellison on his blog, cmhgourmand.com.
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