By Charlie Pogacar
You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody as New Jersey as Stephen Winters, who goes by The Pizza Hulk on Instagram. For example, as a part-time gig, Winters makes ice cream at Holsten’s, the iconic ice cream parlor where the final scene of The Sopranos was filmed.
If you’re asking, Winters doesn’t believe Tony Soprano was whacked. But, according to him, that’s not even a top three Jersey-related debate. “There are three things sure to start a fist fight at a red light in New Jersey,” Winters said. “Those three topics are, in no particular order: Does Central Jersey exist? Taylor Ham or pork roll? And pizza.”
That last topic is where Winters has hung his hat lately. During the pandemic, bored out of his mind, Winters started an Instagram page to begin reviewing local pizzerias. He didn’t have to look far for inspiration in naming the account, which has amassed about 8,000 followers in a little less than four years. Winters has an 8-year-old son, Logan, whom he named after the Marvel character Wolverine. In the Marvel universe, Wolverine and Hulk are generally viewed as close allies—so The Pizza Hulk felt like a natural fit.
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“I always say, Marvel might come for me if the account gets big enough,” Winters said. “But that will just mean that I’ve made it.”
While Winters does technically conduct pizza reviews, he handles them a bit differently than (ahem) certain other influencers. Instead of attaching a number or score to his reviews, he highlights a pizzeria, the pizza he ordered, and what he likes about it. Each reel is short and to the point and contains a bit of information in the caption.
“I don’t really position myself as an expert,” Winters explained. “In fact, I just changed my profile on Instagram. It used to say I’m a ‘pizza analyst,’ but I felt like ‘pizza head’ did a better job of summing it up. I’m into sneakers, and, in the sneaker world, you’re a sneaker head. So that’s why I switched.”
His favorite type of pie happens to be the thin-crust bar pies, with cheese nearly edge to edge, that have become synonymous with New Jersey pizza. He admits that’s a bias of his, but he doesn’t like to pretend to be something he’s not.
“Like, I can appreciate a really good sauce,” Winters said. “But I’m not a big sauce guy. That’s not what’s going to get my attention most of the time.”
Winters has found that he likes talking about pizza—or about anything, really—so much that he recently started a podcast, Smashing Slices. In his own words, it’s a Seinfeld-esque “show about nothing.” The main theme is pizza, but you can find Winters riffing on just about any topic.
“I’ll just start recapping a great dinner I had, or I’ll recap a soccer practice my son just had,” Winters said. “It’s kind of just my life in front of the camera.”
Winters may downplay it, but it’s clear his opinions are gaining an increasing amount of respect. He was recently commissioned to create a “Top NJ Pizza Spots to Try” list for Jersey Bites. He seems to revel in the strong opinions a list like that generates, but he wants everyone to understand it’s just his opinion. It’s not meant to be anything more than a fun, perhaps strongly-worded discussion.
“People actually do pay attention,” Winters said. “People will send me messages on Instagram and ask me, ‘Alright, I like this style. Where would you go if you liked that style of pizza?’ That’s a fun thing. It’s like, OK, we’re doing something here.”
Winters is gaining attention in real life, too. On a recent family trip to the zoo, a man came running through a crowd yelling, “Pizza Hulk!” to say hello and snap a photo with Winters. Winters was nearly as bewildered as the people surrounding him.
“It was funny,” he said. “I think people were probably like, ‘Who is this guy? Is he famous?’”
Because the passion for pizza runs so deep in the Garden State—and the profile of the state’s pizza scene only seems to be growing—Winters might soon be asked for more photo opps. That’s the goal, anyway.
“I’m just a guy who loves pizza and loves to talk about it,” Winters said. “[If I visit your pizzeria], I don’t bring in the type of business that a Portnoy does because that’s on a whole other level. But there was a time when he started small. And look at him now.”
