This one鈥檚 for the kids who sat on the floor of their school library, thumbing through the latest Guinness World Book of Records. If you can still picture the beaming faces in the photos of most food-related wins, just think: that could soon be you.
That is, if New Haven succeeds in its goal this Friday 鈥� to host the world鈥檚 largest pizza party.
Beloved shops like Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, the originator of New Haven-style pies, and Sally鈥檚 Apizza will be doling out slices. (Notably missing from the list of participants is the final member of the unofficial apizza Big Three, Modern). Both Frank Pepe and Sally鈥檚 are used to long lines of Yale students, local families and tourists on any given day, but Friday will be the most they鈥檝e ever served at once.
The has only been held by Tulsa, Oklahoma for the last year and a half, when its party brought out 3,357 diners in January 2023. New Haven wants to lap the competition.
鈥淲e're gonna crush it, yes, not by having 3,358 people, but our goal is 5,000 people,鈥� said New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker at a press conference announcing the record attempt in July.
Why New Haven?
If you ask Nutmeggers, New Haven has the best pies, plain and simple.
Apizza, pronounced 鈥渦h-beetz鈥� for the uninitiated, is not exactly the pizza that comes to mind for most outside of the state 鈥� evidenced by on the receiving end of the controversial 黑料新闻 pizza campaign this summer.
But the thin-crust, tomato-forward style came to be in Wooster Square, New Haven鈥檚 Little Italy. It has stuck around since 1925, and while New Haven pizza was once less well-known than New York, Chicago or Detroit style, the neighborhood it originated in has stayed packed and, in some ways, unchanged 鈥� including the restaurants and their recipes.
Don鈥檛 take our word for it though. When the charred (not burnt!) apizza came up in Chef David Chang鈥檚 鈥淯gly Delicious鈥� show on Netflix 鈥� season 1, episode 1 鈥� the owner of two-time Michelin-starred Momofuku said,
How do I help break the world record?
Hopefully, you bought a ticket ahead of time because 鈥� but there will be an open-to-the-public portion after the main event.
All attendees have to do is show up and eat two slices of apizza, while watched.
That鈥檚 because a 鈥渢rust me, bro鈥� will not cut it for a world record. So, yes, it鈥檚 a fun event, but there are rules.
First is an ask that pizza partiers arrive at the New Haven Green at the start time of 4 p.m. They鈥檒l then be sent with their slices to corrals, each able to handle 100 people in 15-minute intervals.
At 7 p.m., the record attempt will be deemed successful or not, and then, the fencing will come down to allow everyone into the free Apizza Feast.
Mangia, mangia!
