Pizza Wars

When I was traveling abroad, in order to make sense of whatever countries’ currency quickly, I developed my own economic indicator. I used a can of Coke. However much it took to buy a coke, I would then scale that to grasp how much things could buy. That was back when you could buy a coke for a buck(so it made an easy conversion), now it’s more like one twenty five or one fifty. Lately, I’ve noticed another economic indicator though–the price of pizza.

When I first moved to the East Village, I was alarmed at the price of pizza. Places started raising their per/slice price (PSP) from around $2 to then $2.25. And then sadly $2.50. At those prices, it makes so much more sense to buy a full pie because the per/pie price(PPP) is hovering around $12.

Then last fall, a place opened on St. Mark’s next to Kathrine’s apt. Their PSP was shocking. $1! What a steal! Of course, it was an introductory sale price and surely going to disappear after a week or so right? WRONG. It’s still here almost a year later, still flaunting their $1 PSP. We wondered how they could keep this up. They must be losing money.

But clearly they weren’t losing money, the other pizza shops in the East Village were. And most particular the one a few stores down. And like some great airline price war, it was on. $1 PSP! I noticed another pizza place as far away as 10th St being affected because they briefly put up a hand written sign with a $1 PSP. Now it’s $1.50. But they aren’t right by the original insanity pricing.

Neither of these two shops are like a traditional price war where there’s one big giant store that wants to edge out the smaller store by offering a cut rate price because it will be able to slash its profits until the other store goes bankrupt and they push them out of business. No, these are two small stores that seem if not Mom and Pop like one store johnnies. So who’s going to blink? I don’t know. But I hope it continues. I love this $1 PSP. Sadly, the rest of New York’s prices haven’t followed suit. So I’m still following the price of Coke.