Few pop-up born pizza brands have generated more hype than Chrissy’s Pizza, founded in 2021 by Chris Hansell in his Brooklyn, New York, apartment. Hansel went on to receive much acclaim running his part-time pop-up out of a restaurant called Superiority Burger in Manhattan’s East Village. 

Now, finally, Chrissy’s Pizza will have its own brick-and-mortar store, as first reported by Grub Street. The new shop will be back across the East River, in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Hansell’s pop-up operation has been named one of New York City’s best pizza places by The New York Times.

For a couple of years, Hansell served up some of the toughest-to-find pizza in New York City. He went from offering up pies via a slotted online ordering system to serving walk-up-only pizza that would sometimes sell out in a matter of minutes. 

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Wherever there is hype regarding pizza, one is also likely to find haters, and Chrissy’s is no exception. As Grub Street pointed out, there were entire Reddit threads dedicated to the best ways to get one’s hands on Chrissy’s uber-popular pizza. On those same threads, many suggested the hype was ridiculous—and the pizza must be overrated. 

“People were just upset that they couldn’t get it, but it wasn’t because I was trying to have it be that way,” Hansell told Grub Street. “I feel like I was overexplaining it every single week. This is why: It’s just me. I have this little oven that’s normally only for reheating slices at shops. I can only do this many at a time. I can only do it for two hours.”

Chrissy’s Pizza posted a preview of the new shop to Instagram. The interior decor is pure nostalgia, with wood paneling and a small VHS player blaring The Sopranos. The menu is a wood letter board straight out of the 1970’s. The prices on that menu board, however, are decidedly modern: a cheese or “regular” pie will run you $30. A pepperoni pizza retails for $34. A specialty pizza costs $36, and Chrissy’s also sells a red vegan pie for $32. Slices are not something that Chrissy’s Pizza offers, at least not yet. 

According to Hansell, Chrissy’s might eventually offer a Caesar salad or maybe even another appetizer or two. But you won’t find sandwiches or anything too complicated, at least not in the near future. “The thing I’m going to focus on right now is getting the perfect garlic knot,” Hansell told Grub Street, prior to adding: “Or just a good garlic knot.” 

There are only a half dozen seats or so inside the new shop, which was intentionally designed to feel like a throwback to a different time period. ”I tried to make it look like an old place I would go to with my dad,” Hansell said. “I put in a tin ceiling, but I painted it this weird deep red I would see in old taverns.” 

The Grub Street story notes that Hansell’s dad passed away in 2011. “The reason I’m doing this is to honor my dad,” he added, “who made me a pizza freak at a young-ass age.”

Pizzerias