TulaneLSU's history of pizza and top 10 pizzas in New Orleans

Dear Friends,

Would you believe that the first pizzas in America were baked in New Orleans? For several decades now, the common belief, spread by the owners of Lombardi’s in Nolita, NYC, was that Gennaro Lombardi opened the nation's first pizzeria, his eponymous pizzeria, in 1905 on Spring St, just west of its current location. More recent and objective research from Chicagoan, Peter Regas, showed that the first documented pizzeria in New York was opened by Giovanni Albano in 1894 followed by the first pizza franchisor, Filippo Milone, whose NY pizza empire began in 1898.

New Jersey’s pizzerias began appearing in the 1910s, a direct result of overflow from New York. New Haven pizza traces its origin to the 1920s, but unlike New Jersey, its first pizza makers came from Italy. Pizza in Chicago and Detroit styled pizzas made their debuts in the 1940s, as pizza in America experienced a post-war boom.

Thanks to the tireless work of food historian, critic, and savant, Tom Fitzmorris, a beacon who has talked about food more than any other person in history, we know that New Orleans’s first pizzerias during this 1940s national pizza boom opened in the French Quarter. Joseph John Segreto opened Segreto’s Restaurant and Bar at 809 St. Louis in the summer of 1945. It was the perfect time to open a restaurant with pizzas, as the many soldiers returning from the European front had taken to that indelible combination of dough, sauce, and cheese.


The previously first documented pizza establishment in New Orleans, Segreto's at 809 St. Louis

A year later, in 1946, just down the street, at the corner of St. Louis and Decatur, Domino’s Pizza began. Domino’s was a local Italian restaurant without connection to the delicious chain started in Michigan in 1960 by the same name. Domino’s would move in 1955 to a downtown location in the building now housing Herbsaint on St. Charles Ave. Its departure from the Italian dominated French Quarter signaled a growing acceptance of Italian food by non-Italian Americans. The restaurant would continue its move away from the heart of the city to a location at the corner of Carrollton and Tulane, where the old Rock N Bowl was before closing in the 1980s.


The original location of Dominos, at the corner of St. Louis and Decatur

Two short-lived pizza joints opened shortly after Domino’s. There was an unnamed pizza takeout at 1907 Decatur, near the French Market that opened in June of 1948 followed by the first Chicago style pizza parlor at 1007 Decatur called Chicago Pizza House. There is no known extant documentation to determine if this Chicago style pizza is more in line with a Malnati’s deep dish or a crackery Vito and Nick’s.


1907 Decatur, at unnamed pizzeria, located between Central Grocery and Cafe Sbisa

The Italian Quarter became home to a fifth pizza outlet when Rizzo’s Restaurant began serving pizzas in 1950. Bill Rizzo, the owner, promoted himself in advertisements as “The King of Pizza.” His restaurant at 311 Bourbon St. was razed and the land on which it sat now is home to Cafe Beignet.

But this post-war chapter in the history of New Orleans pizza is but the second chapter. The first chapter goes back to 1891, when there is evidence for the first Italian bakery opening in New Orleans. It was named F. Lombardo’s Bakery – later its name incorporated his sons – and pizzas were in fact baked in its brick ovens on St. Phillip Street, on the downriver side of the Quarter. The Quarter in those days was rapidly transitioning into an Italian neighborhood, or what some have even said was a Sicilian ghetto.


Lombardo's Bakery on Decatur, photo of photo by Walter Cook Keenan (1950) from Tulane University Libraries. It is now a private residence. The wrought iron visible from the street today maintains historical integrity.

It is very likely that other Italian bakeries in the Quarter in the first decade of the next century also baked pizzas. According to oral tradition, many Italians in the French Quarter were baking pizzas at home in the 1900s and 1910s.

The third chapter of pizza in New Orleans opened in the late 1950s when pizza spread from the Italian neighborhoods to the suburbs. The dough transitioned from a denser one, almost like that of a sfincione to a more processed one. The best example of this pizza is Tower of Pizza. Its founder, Walter Forschler, first opened Arista in 1957 on Franklin Avenue. Forschler decided to move and change his pizzeria’s name to Tower of Pizza, moving to the East on Downman in 1966. Several months later, he expanded to Metairie, opening Dino’s Pizza. It remained Dino’s until he renamed it Tower of Pizza in 1976.

Tower, along with the now closed Pizza Shack (1967) the original Domino’s, Mark Twain’s (even though it opened in 1985), and Venezia’s are the pizzas that best exemplify this time period in New Orleans pizza history. Inside Tower, there are wood panels that fit the red and white checkered table cloths to a T. The 50s style painted panel menu, the oddly canary yellow fluorescent lights outside, the broken neon sign, and the windowed pizza room, which pays homage to Shakey’s pizza room, which was across the street, all are blocks that build the quintessentially New Orleans pizzeria.

Some friends ask me, “TulaneLSU, why does New Orleans have such bad pizza?” The answer is found in the fourth chapter of New Orleans pizza history – which started in 1980. National pizza chains, like Domino’s, Showbiz, and Pizza Hut, found fertile, alluvial soil in which to plant their dirty seed. Unfortunately, profit, not craftsmanship, produced a generation of pizza eaters in New Orleans who did not care about pizza quality. The concern was for a quick, cheap filler that kids would also enjoy. Local chains Italian Pie and Reginelli’s fit into this chapter quite well.

Things began to change in 2000, when Antonio Bongiorno opened Nino’s in Carrollton. His pizzeria was a dump and not particularly clean. Few outside of Carrollton tried his pizza, but those who did knew that they had experienced something new and different. His was the first pizzeria that had pizzas on par with traditional gas deck oven pizzas of New York. Pizza in New Orleans was looking up.The Duvio family arrived in 2004 and had a similarly great New York style that opened Metairie eyes that the pizzas they were eating were subpar. Although not at the same level of Nino’s or Brooklyn, Pizza Delicious, which opened in 2012, and Mid City Pizza (2013) fit in this fifth chapter of pizza history.