In New York, the “dollar slice” pizzerias between two fires of inflation – Liberation

Faced with the inflation of raw materials and rents, restaurants, known for their $1 pizza slices, are reviewing their prices, when they are not closing permanently.–

02/22/2022, a date full of 2 that can be read in all directions. On this occasion, Freed see 2s everywhere. A special issue to also be found on newsstands.

Accustomed for a long time to the high cost of living and the wildest prices, from small studio rents at 3,000 dollars to slices of avocado priced above the hourly minimum wage, New York is not the most stirred by the wave of historic inflation that is rotting the economic record of the Biden administration – a 7% increase in the United States in 2021, unheard of since 1982. But, to inflate the cost of most essential foodstuffs, they are nevertheless cruelly imprinted on the daily life of the most modest inhabitants of the city and even threatens to dispel the most emblematic of its egalitarian mirages: the dollar slice.

Either the most basic slice of pizza, a simple triangle of dough, tomato sauce, imitation melted cheese and comfort food cheap, minted individually for a single small greenback, which historically constitutes the most affordable level of a culture imported from Italy at the end of the 19th century, cultivated since then as a local treasure, and of which New York prides itself on being the incomparable American stronghold. However, for months, specialized brands have been closing shop one after the other, in the wake of the thousand New York restaurants that have succumbed since the start of the pandemic, or else have been forced to cross out their storefronts to display an increased price. .

“A kind of public service”

“Here, you can easily find $50, $60, or $200 pizza served on a white tablecloth, but the authentic New York pizza culture is the cheap, non-judgmental version taken down the street or the subway , says expert Scott Wiener, who leads tours of Manhattan and Brooklyn through the prism of pizza tasting. The $1 slice is the more democratic version, with lower quality ingredients and a questionable dining experience compared to $4 or $5 versions, but the important thing is to have the choice.

Most of them opened in the early 2000s near homeless shelters or student neighborhoods, the emblematic signs of this market specific to New York swarmed on the busy avenues following the crisis of the subprime in 2008. Sanctuary thus this very symbolic tariff, in spite of increasingly tight margins, testified near Release several owners, some of whom say they see this business as “a kind of public service”. Abdul Mohammad, owner of 99 Cent Fresh Pizza, eight establishments in Manhattan, is sorry to have to review its price for the first time since 2001, while “It’s often the only hot food that people who are having a hard time can afford”.

“Like the canary in the mine”

In question, first of all the loss of activity recorded during the pandemic. Then, the conflagration of costs “of all the ingredients”, according to Oren Halali of 2 Bros Pizza, who has already had to settle for a 50% increase in three of his nine locations: “Flour, cheese, tomatoes, gloves, paper napkins and plates, cardboard boxes, everything climbs. And salaries too…” This, due to circumstances as diverse as drought, frost, lack of labor or truck drivers, and the slowing down of import chains, particularly from Italy. But, while such fluctuations in the price of foodstuffs have always existed without affecting the posted price, the most implacable factor remains the one which also strangles the clientele dependent on these popular institutions: land.

Thus this rent reassessed in January from 8,000 to 10,000 dollars monthly, and which should be again this summer, according to the owner of the former “1$ Hot Pizza” in downtown Brooklyn, which had to resolve to patch up its sign and its storefront to display this new, less flashy name: “1$50 Hot Pizza”. While waiting perhaps for the “2 dollar slice” if inflation continues at this incendiary rate… On the sidewalk, we come across Travis Wood and Alex Mallis, documentarians in the middle of shooting a film on the subject: “It’s sad because the dollar slice, it’s what makes you feel welcome in spite of everything in a place as hard and expensive as New York. And it may not be dramatic, this small increase. But it’s like the canary in the coal mine: the harmless sign of something much bigger and bigger.”

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