Find out where Columbus ranks in this annual, data-driven survey of the country’s best pizza cities

Photo by Aaron Massey

While we here in Columbus will defend our thin, crispy pizza tooth and nail, what does the rest of the country think of the Arch City’s pies?

In a data-driven survey from Clever Real Estate that was posted late last month, Columbus was named one of the best 50 pizza cities in the country. In this ranking, Clever used a variety of complicated, weighted metrics, including the following:

4x: Pizza reputation (survey of 1,000 Americans)
4x: Online search activity for 25 pizza-related terms (referred to as the city’s “pizza passion”)
2x: Average price of a large cheese pizza
1x: Average price of a large pepperoni pizza
1x: Average Yelp rating for pizza restaurants
1x: Rate of pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents

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Using Clever’s weighted metrics, Columbus was named the 31st best pizza city in the country. Not bad, that’s for sure, but Arch City residents may have a bone to pick with the fact that Cleveland came in higher, at 11 overall (Detroit was named the country’s “best” pizza city in the survey for the second year in a row).

Cleveland was also named the country’s most affordable pizza city, with the average cost of a large cheese pizza coming in at $14. 31, significantly cheaper than the average cost of a large cheese pizza among the top 50 cities: $21.79. According to the data, a large cheese pizza in Columbus on average costs $23.31.

Things don’t exactly get better here for Columbus, either. According to Clever, Columbus was ranked as one of the “least popular” pizza cities on its list, although this term may be a bit misleading, as this distinction is only being considered among the country’s 50 best pizza cities.

According to the data, which polled 1,000 people for their five favorite pizza cities in the country, Columbus only appeared on lists 2.1 percent of the time, making it the third-to-least popular pizza state among the top 50.

Columbus was not named as one of the “worst pizza cities” on the list, however, as “worst” refer to the cumulation of low scores among multiple weighted categories on the Clever list. In case you’re curious, the worst pizza city in 2023, according to the Clever data, is San Antonio, Texas.

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