Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I grew up outside of East Liverpool Ohio, I never realized that pizza was made any other way until I moved to college. Bruno's pizza was a friday staple growing up, so much that now when I go home to visit my parents, my mother always picks up a tray. The best part if Ohio River Valley Pizza, is that it tastes just as good the next day out of the fridge! Home pizza in St. Clairsville is VERY good as well. I live in Columbus now, and the pizza just doesn't get to that level, but there is a DiCarlo's off of 256 in Pickerington, although I have not had it.

If anybody passes through Athens Ohio, Goodfella's pizza is a must. They sell by the slice, and it is close to Ohio Valley style, but they use a much thicker sauce. It was perfect after a night uptown at the bars.

Ohio pizza is the best....They actually have some really good pizza places there...The problem that i have is....i'm not there anymore =(....I'm in San antonio,Tx and there is one good pizza place [[Pizzabella]].They have the jumbo thin crust pizza...Its good but nothing like Canton Ohio's Papa Bears Pizza Oven , Wacos Pizza, East of Chicago,Napolians,So many different styles of pizza. And they don't have it in the south =(....

I came to Columbus Ohio from central NJ, and have long taken issue with the Pizza here. It seems to be the product of gluttony over good sense. Round pies are cut into square pieces.because you can not lard a pizza with all the cheep ingredients, low grade cheese, greasy pepperoni, fatty sausage, and rivers of sugary sauce, that are considered necessary here, and serve it any other way than two inch square bites. When I want good pizza in central Ohio, I make it myself. In summer, I use a pizza stone on a charcoal grill, in winter I use my 550 degree oven, and follow the directions for Neapolitan, above.

andy stoops - I think Vincents is gone. You're talking about the place on Penn Ave, right? Yeah, that's Spak Bros. now. It's relatively new, and I haven't been there, but I've heard good things (they do all local/organic stuff, and have vegetarian and vegan offerings).

I never realized that Pittsburgh had sweeter sauce than other parts of the country. I would like to add that it's not just sweet, but usually well seasoned (at least the good ones are), sometimes a little kick to them. There are soooo many pizza places in town, and they're all different, but I haven't encountered any that aren't good. You can always find one that's right for you - the right taste to the sauce, texture to the dough, quantity of toppings. My personal favorite is Rialto's over in Greenfield (although I haven't been there in a few years).

Mineo's seems to be our most famous, but yeah, a bit overrated. Adam, if you make it to Pittsburgh, just order a slice from Mineos, NOT the whole pie. The slices are actually twice baked, which makes them way better.

I also think this is probably fairly local - the pierogie pizza. I refuse to try it, but a lot of local places have some variance of a pierogie pizza, because Pittsburgers seem to think that they invented the pierogie. A pierogie pizza will have mashed potatoes, onions and cheese.

There are 3 kinds of pizza: Good, Better and Best. You be your own judge.

Here's a working URL to the DC jumbo slice lore article:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=29582

For those in New England, what about Papa Gino's? Yeh it's a chain, but it's essentially the blueprint for east coast pizza - thin crust, thin layer of cheese that melds perfectly with the somewhat sweet sauce. And on a "side note", two friends and I created http://www.slicefinder.com for just these debates. Pardon the plug, but seems relevant here.

I gotta add a vote for Upstate NY Style - I grew up in Buffalo, went to school near Rochester. I now live in Florida.

Buffalo style pizza as pointed out is a thicker crust, not greasy, often a little doughy but crisp on the bottom. TONS of cheese... and almost always the peperroni is loaded on, smaller in diameter than most, but always with crisp edges on the pepperoni. Bocce is a great example of this.. but almost any roadside pizzeria in Buffalo has this formula.

Living in Florida, I am sick and tired of every kind of pizza place offering only "NY Style" pizza. Big thin floppy slices that taste like cardboard... I never understood the appeal of that. They taste especially crappy the next day cold... and cold pizza should be one of the BEST ways to eat pizza ;)

The more I think about it, I need to open a Bocce-style pizzeria in Orlando...

Yeah the Upstate style!!! The best is Brandani's on W.Henrietta rd. on Rochester. Pontillos does a nice job for a chain. Columbini's in Chili makes a good one and they have a bakery,so you grab some canoli too.

I just moved back to Rochester after 10 years in New York City. Prior to that I worked a number of years at Pontillo's. I understand good pizza and have tried pizza all over NYC and Rochester, and, I will say that any generally held notion that NYC has great pizza is quite funny. NYC is like any other city with multiple businesses. Some of the pizza is OK, and some of it sucks! The worst pizza I've had was in NYC -and it was from a famous chain ... Ray's, I think. Their downtown location was pass-able, and then I had a slice uptown and it was horrible. I would say, overall, unless they are "really" famous for having great pizza, you are more likely to get a good slice in Rochester because in NYC, the owners are cut-throat and serious about saving every penny they can - partly to pay their extremely high rents. Therefore, they will cut any corner possible - using crap cheese, crap dough, etc. And often the people they hire to cook the pizza's could care less - it's a low paying job - affecting the final outcome. A "great NYC pizza" is simply a myth.
If you are talking about thickness of crust, yes, generally NYC uses a thinner crust (less expensive to produce?!) and upstate uses more dough (costs more.)