Sally’s Apizza made a smart move, both literally and figuratively, when it finally ventured out of Connecticut in late 2023—at least, judging from the lines at the New Haven-style pizza brand’s new location in the Boston area.

Founded in New Haven in 1938, Sally’s took its thin-crust, coal-fired apizza out-of-state to Woburn, Massachusetts, last December, and Bostonians can’t get enough, according to the Boston Globe. “The toughest table in town these days?” the Globe’s Kara Baskin reported in January 2024. “No, it’s not a swanky downtown restaurant—it’s at Sally’s Apizza.”

In her article, Baskin described “lines out the door and around the block,” adding, “I know; I saw them every time I scooted into HomeGoods next door to do my holiday shopping.”

Related: Is New Haven-style apizza set to explode? This expert says yes.

New Haven-style pizza is certainly having a moment. Earlier this month Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont declared New Haven the “pizza capital of America,” after the state’s legislature failed to pass a measure that would have named pizza the official state food.

Meanwhile, pizza guru Colin Kaplan, founder of Taste of New Haven, this week announced that pizza will be spotlighted in his show, The Pizza Files, airing monthly on WTNH News 8 during the CT Morning Buzz. Taste of New Haven offer food tours all over the city, including the Downtown Pizza Tour, the Little Italy Pizza Tour, the State Street Pizza Tour and the Pizza Lovers Tour.

The December 2023 opening of Sally’s Boston location generated headlines in the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine and local and regional TV outlets.

So where to next? The Woburn location is the first of two Sally’s Apizza stores planned for Boston. The brand last year announced it would open a second restaurant in Boston’s Seaport District sometime in 2024. Plans call for additional locations in Connecticut as well.

Writing for Boston Magazine, Rachel Leah Blumenthal noted, “More New Haven pizza has arrived in Massachusetts, and we’re totally here for it. Any of the pleasantly charred, thin-crust pies are worth the trip to Woburn, but our favorite is the potato-and-rosemary.”

By “more New Haven pizza,” Blumenthal was apparently referring to other New Haven-style pizza outposts in Boston like Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, which now has three stores in the metro area.

For her part, Baskin wrote that she and her family spent weeks trying to land a table or even order pizza online from Sally’s in Woburn, but the store was just too overwhelmed due to high demand. She compared her effort to “trying to get Taylor Swift tickets.”

When Baskin finally managed to squeeze into the shop with her family, she wasn’t disappointed with her pie, “a classic mozzarella…and tomato version…topped with a seasonal pureed eggplant. The sauce was sweet, the mootz was judiciously applied, and my silver tray was layered with soot. This is not a gloppy, cheesy pizza. It’s blackened and smoky, so don’t be surprised. Another popular version is made only with tomato sauce and a dusting of Parmesan, but the crackly dough and the sweetish sauce really are good enough to stand alone….I have lots of leftovers today, and I’m happy about that.”

Could New Haven-style pizza become the next red-hot industry trend nationwide, like the explosion of Detroit-style shops around the country? “My answer to that is unequivocally yes,” Executive Chef Bret Lunsford told PMQ earlier this month.

Sally’s Apizza COO Ted Zizlsperger added, “New Haven is one of the styles that’s popping up sporadically. But nobody is doing it at scale right now. A rising tide lifts all ships, and we support anyone and everyone who is trying to get New Haven-style out there because it benefits all of us.”