Mamma mia, that’s a lot of dough.
Inflation is wreaking havoc on one of the Big Apple’s most treasured traditions — affordable pizza. Cheap pies and late-night fuel-ups for a dollar are on the endangered list, and a new, saucy trend is in the oven at pizzerias all over NYC: the $5 slice, leaving some New Yorkers crying, “Basta!”
The latest slinger to hop on the pricey bandwagon is Fini Pizza, an upscale Williamsburg shop newly opened by Sean Feeney (Lilia, Misi). The Bedford Avenue storefront has been charging $5 for a piece of the pie since opening up this summer.
The teensy shop has a photo-ready design complete with retro lawn chairs and classic delivery bikes artfully placed out front.
It joins Brooklyn pizzerias such as L’Industrie Pizzeria, owned by Italian expat Massimo Laveglia, which charges $5.50 for its “New Yorker” slice, and the popular Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop in Greenpoint, where the famed Hellboy slice (pepperoni with Mike’s Hot Honey, invented by a one-time employee) now costs $5.
And judging by the lengthy lines snaking out of Fini earlier this week, plenty of New Yorkers appear to have made their peace with the new normal.
“It’s kind of crazy, the new $5 benchmark now,” customer Derek Lee, 24, a Bayside native and accountant living near South Street Seaport, told The Post.
Still, he conceded, “that’s the amount I’m prepared to pay now walking into most pizzerias.”
He forked over more than $30 for fan-favorite white pie at Fini.
Others called the price hike a sign of the times.
“In 2022, it doesn’t bug me — the $2.50 slice is a thing of the past,” Brooklyn Heights resident and Fini first-timer Ceava Kats, 48, told The Post.
One customer pointed out that Fini felt more special than run-of-the-mill Ray’s.
“It’s almost like a treat. I wouldn’t group [this] into, ‘I’m getting a slice of pizza.’ I think of it more like, ‘Let’s get dinner’ with my friends or something. It’s fancier,” said Annie Gao, a 23-year-old p.r. worker who lives in the Financial District.
Still, even she has her limits, noting $7 is the most she’d shell out for a slice.
Of course, quality ingredients are frequently used by pizza makers as justification for the dramatic increase in prices.
At Scarr’s Pizza on the Lower East Side, owner Scarr Pimentel works with all-natural, 100% stone-milled flour to create one of the better classic slices available in New York City. A standard cheese slice is still a relative steal at $3.75, but for pepperoni, you’ll now pay nearly $5.
At Fini, however, $5 doesn’t necessarily pay for even a hint of cheese — one popular option is a tomato slice, made with costly San Marzano tomatoes and Calabrian chili oil, topped with garlic breadcrumbs. A scrumptious white slice, on the other hand, brimming with luxurious Fontina cheese and served with a lemon wedge, costs $5.25. A standard slice rings in just under the high-water mark at $4.75.
Factoring in tax and a 15% per table suggested gratuity, one each of the five slices offered at Fini — sans beverages like a $14 Brooklyn-brewed IPA — will cost you a whopping $30.86.
And some locals have had it with the upscaling of their neighborhood.
“When I was eating pizza there was a group of kids coming from school; they walked into the shop and then they exited, [saying] ‘We’re not paying $5 for pizza,'” said Veronika Guity, a 32-year-old marketing director from the Financial District, who posted pictures of herself “eating [a] $5 slice in a $500 dress” at Fini on her Instagram account.
She said she can personally justify the spending. After all, she’s been conditioned by living in lower Manhattan.
“It’s an $8 latte, a $5 pizza slice, a $20 sandwich,” Guity said. “That’s kind of where we’re at now in New York City.”
