Slice
Shenanigans on 27th Street
Roma Pizza in better days, before it unexpectedly closed last week.
Last week saw the passing of Roma Pizza on West 27th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. I'm probably speaking for everyone on the block—which is home to FIT and the Serious Eats/Slice office—when I say it was an unexpected event. One evening, we were buying slices there for a quick dinner, and the next morning the place was being cleaned out by an auction. By the time the 4 p.m. coffee break rolled around, there was a black plastic trash bag outside the door with the handle of a pizza peel peeking out of it.
As our web developer, Raphael, pointed out, "That's sad. Someone spent his days building pizzas on that peel, shoving them in and pulling them out of the oven." We almost salvaged it but, hey, who knows what was in that bag along with it.
Anyway, it wasn't the best pizza we'd ever had, but it was a surprisingly decent slice—certainly better than most around there—and it always did the trick when we needed a snack or were short on dollars or time or both.
So cut to today. We walk by and there's a small sign taped to the wall outside: "Rome Pizzira moved to 8 ave between 25 and 26."
"That's odd," I said. "There's only a weird little hole in the wall on that block. I wonder if Roma is now giving them a run for their money over there."
So we walked over, eager to see the guys from Roma in a new location.
No dice. As I remembered, the only pizzeria on that block is Luigi's. So we grabbed lunch elsewhere, walked back to the office, and, out of curiosity, dialed the number on the makeshift sign. "Hello, Luigi's."
On the way home tonight, I snapped a pic to verify the phone number, and sure enough. Luigi's must have placed that sign. As a bit of guerrilla marketing on the part of Luigi's, it's kind of a brilliant, if sneaky, move. You gotta hand it to them.
Now if only they snatched that pizza peel.