By Charlie Pogacar
Josh Sickels, owner of Rockaway Pizzeria, was planning to move his pizza shop about 30 minutes northwest, from White Oak to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The plan was, while the pizza shop was temporarily closed this fall, he would embark on a pizza-eating road trip through Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York City and New Haven, Connecticut.
Then, one day in early September, Barstool founder and CEO Dave Portnoy visited Rockaway Pizzeria, and Sickels’ plans got delayed. Even before Portnoy posted the ensuing One Bite Review—in which he awarded Rockaway Pizzeria a sterling 8.2—Portnoy posted a photo of Rockaway to social media. The photo was enough to set off a frenzy of foot traffic at a shop that was already no stranger to large crowds and two-hour wait times. By the time the 8.2 review went live, the shop was being mobbed on a daily and seemingly unceasing basis.
Sickels ultimately decided to keep the White Oak location open a few more weeks. He wanted to both capitalize on the foot traffic but also give customers one more chance to eat the pizza before officially moving Rockaway Pizzeria to Pittsburgh. That meant, when it was finally time to close the White Oak shop, Sickels badly needed a break. His pizza road trip had become all the more necessary.
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“The trip, which started out as a little mental-health vacation and some pizza eating, turned into more of, like, a transcendent type of Mecca journey of pizza,” Sickels said on the latest episode of Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast.
As transcendent as it may have been, it was hard work, too. It was research Sickels conducted “in the name of science:” He visited 23 pizzerias in four days and ate virtually nothing but pizza during those 96 hours. “To this day, I still have acid reflux, five weeks later,” he added.
Some of the highlights of the trip included visiting famed pizza institutions like Lucali, John’s of Bleecker Street and L&B Spumoni Gardens for the first time. He returned to Mama’s TOO! and ate the famed Sicilian Specialty pizza—maybe his favorite in the world, Sickels added—and made his first trip to New Haven. He sampled apizza at each of the Big Three: Sally’s, Frank Pepe’s and Modern. He loved every bit of the apizza, even when his stomach could barely take another bite.
“It’s great when these legendary places, or these hyped places, live up to the hype,” Sickels said. “That’s a beautiful thing, because a lot of times in this world you’re [only] let down by something that’s overly hyped. Like, John’s [of Bleecker Street] tasted different than I thought it would taste, but it was still amazing.”
Sickels, who is a self-described pizza nerd, doesn’t always care for the pizza nerdery of others. For example, he’s disillusioned by those who have taken pizza—the lovable, fun food—and turned it into something a “little too dainty.” About this, Sickels has some strong opinions.
“I have a foot in the old school and a foot in the new school,” Sickles said. “And my problem with most pizza [makers] now is that they’re either stuck in the past or they have both of their feet in the new school… There’s something nostalgic about really great pizza. And that nostalgia is being lost with newer pizza makers that are obsessed with [their pizza] being Instagrammable.”
Sickels, who learned to make his own New York-style pizza by watching YouTube, quickly rose to prominence in the Pittsburgh metro area. His dedication to both the things that have always made pizza great and the things that have taken the food to new heights led to pizza that few in the area had tried before. Even before he opened the shop on January 3, 2017, he was making waves by posting pictures to social media. It turned out people in the area were starved for authentic New York-style pizza, so much so that even photos of his pies could make their mouths water.
“Local groups in the area started sharing [the posts], and they were, like, ‘Oh, this new pizza shop is going to be opening in a few months,'” Sickels recalled on the podcast. “And it just kind of snowballed from there.”
Long before Portnoy ever visited Rockaway Pizzeria, the shop attracted long lines. In fact, due to the hype on social media—and also to Sickels’ lack of experience churning out pies—there were long waits from day one. During the first week Rockaway Pizzeria was open, a woman “started an uprising” of sorts, Sickels recalled on the podcast. She complained about the wait times, and Sickels finally broke down.
“I was like, ‘Look, lady. I just opened. I know this is ridiculous,'” Sickels recalled. “‘I know you shouldn’t have to wait two hours for a pizza.’ I’m like, ‘I’ll give every single one of you in here [your] pizza for free. I don’t [care] about the money. But please, I’ve never owned a business before. I don’t know what [in the world] I’m doing. Just bear with me.'”
That moment of brutal honesty turned out to be a defining moment for Sickels and Rockaway Pizzeria. When he got home from work that day, he noticed a series of five-star reviews had poured in online. The reviews all echoed a similar sentiment: “I waited a long time for this pizza, but it was amazing.”
“And I just started crying,” Sickels said. “I just broke down in tears because I was like…on my second day, I wanted to quit. I was like, I’m not cut out for this. I enjoy pizza, I love pizza, I love making it, but I don’t want to do it for a living…The first batch of reviews after week one really put wind in my sails for me to just be like, I can do this. I can [really] do this.”
To hear more about Sickels’ pizza-eating road trip, how he broke into the pizza game and how those things are connected, check out the latest episode of Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast.
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