By Tracy Morin | Photos courtesy Avalon Downtown Pizzeria
Any restaurateur knows it’s difficult to recreate the magic of an Italian grandmother’s food—the love, the care, the passion and pride that go into every bite. But the best Brier Hill-style pizzerias set their sights on accomplishing this labor of love every day, carrying on their grandmas’ traditions for die-hard fans in Youngstown, Ohio.
The Brier Hill pizza style is named after a neighborhood in this eastern Ohio town, whose population swelled to 170,000 by 1930. Seeking work in the surrounding steel mills, immigrants flooded the area, with Italians settling in the neighborhood of Brier Hill. “They’d make pizza and bread in brick ovens in their backyard,” says Anne Massullo-Sabella, owner of Avalon Downtown Pizzeria in Youngstown, a hot spot for the Brier Hill style. “At one of the churches, a monsignor started to make it on Fridays, as a fundraiser. He tried to have the name trademarked and wasn’t able to, but that’s how the name got started. Growing up, we didn’t refer to it as Brier Hill pizza—it was just grandma’s pizza.”
While other U.S. regions sell what they call “grandma pies,” Brier Hill is a very specific type of style. But Massullo-Sabella emphasizes that the Italian immigrants weren’t attempting to be originators; they were simply practical and frugal by necessity, using whatever they had on hand. In their yards, they grew tomatoes, which could be canned, and peppers, which could serve as a topping. Cheese was expensive, so instead of mozzarella, they threw grated Romano (left over from pasta dishes) on top of the dough-and-sauce base. Voilà—a cheap, filling meal or snack.
These bare-bones elements became part of the pizza’s charm. “It comes from not having a lot of money,” Massullo-Sabella says. “But they knew how to make the smallest, simplest thing so tasty. When they had a small amount of dough left over, they’d fry it and throw sugar on it for us kids. We thought we were getting a treat, and we were actually getting scraps.”
“We thought we’d make 100 pizzas a day—something very doable. I knew the pizza was good, because I grew up eating it, but I never realized how crazy people could behave over pizza.”
—Anne Massullo-Sabella, Avalon Downtown Pizzeria
Carrying the Torch of Tradition
Despite these humble, “scrappy” beginnings, Brier Hill pizza continues to thrive in the area. Youngstown’s St. Anthony of Padua Church has relied on the pizza to headline fast-sellout fundraisers since 1972. Several pizzerias selling Brier Hill pies have been operating for decades, such as Wedgewood Pizza (established 1967) and Cassese’s MVR (opened in 1927).
Massullo-Sabella herself re-entered the Brier Hill scene by reviving the style she’d grown up loving alongside her grandparents. They’d owned a pizzeria, Avalon Gardens, from the 1930s and employed a pizza maker who’d plied his trade at a pizzeria called Lavanty’s. He stayed with the business for decades, solidifying its reputation as a Brier Hill pie haven, even as the business traded hands, then eventually shuttered.
It was this tradition that Massullo-Sabella wanted to carry on when Avalon Downtown opened in 2012. But she never expected such a frenzied reception from customers, who proved a still-rabid fan base for Avalon’s Brier Hill style. “We thought we’d make 100 pizzas a day—something very doable,” she recalls. “I knew the pizza was good, because I grew up eating it, but I never realized how crazy people could behave over pizza.”
That opening-day enthusiasm was repeated when Massullo-Sabella was forced into a 40-day shutdown as she broke ties with a business partner. “When we reopened, I knew it was a special pizza in this area. I realized the love people have for this product,” she says. “We’d have a two-, three-hour waiting time—and this was for two weeks straight! It was an eye-opening experience for me, seeing that love. Brier Hill pizza is the old soul that’s going to be there forever.”
Old-World Time Warp
At Avalon Downtown, pizzas start with a light, focaccia-like dough made fresh daily. “It’s not thin or super thick—it’s medium, but very light, with a lot of aerated holes, because we don’t use a sheeter,” Massullo-Sabella explains. “So there’s a lot of labor on one shell: cut, weigh, ball, put on a pan, let it rise a little, press out once, let it rise again. It’s like a little factory.”
Except it’s all done by hand—and complemented with high-quality toppings, like Stanislaus tomatoes, Grandé Romano cheese, Smithfield Foods Margherita pepperoni, and sausage (featuring the pizzeria’s own special seasoning blend) custom-made by a local butcher. The pizza is cooked in a round oiled pan, with three sizes available: 8”, 12” and 14”. A deck oven at 450° to 500° crisps up the pizza’s bottom for an irresistible crunch.
But Massullo-Sabella believes that customers’ love for the Brier Hill style goes beyond technical specifics and logistics. “The biggest thing is the nostalgia,” she says. “It takes them back to childhood—to something their grandma, mother or aunt made. It’s an old-world style, and it brings you back to happier times.”
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
