There is no one actually named Tony Boloney at Tony Boloney’s. There’s only founder Mike Hauke and his team of pizza makers plying their craft at locations in Hoboken, Atlantic City, Long Branch, Jersey City and Margate, New Jersey. But when it comes to reimagining the possibilities of pizza, Tony Boloney’s has few, if any, peers—and that’s no baloney.
Hauke opened the first Tony Boloney’s location—at the time a small deli and convenience store—in Atlantic City in 2009. But he started earning national fame after he won the Truckin’ Amazing Cook-Off on Live with Kelly and Michael in the summer of 2013. He parlayed his $20,000 prize into a second Tony Boloney’s location in Hoboken. Since then he has been boldly going where no pizza maker has gone before.
There’s no such thing as “ordinary” at Tony Boloney’s, at least not on the specialty pizza menu—Hauke’s pies are mad-scientist stuff, weird and wonderful, and tailormade for Instagram. For example, a few years back, we reported on a pizza Hauke created using both wet and dry Ramen noodles for the dough. And, at the time, we noted that it wasn’t even the weirdest pie he’d ever invented.
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“Everyone does their own thing—not better or worse, just different,” Hauke recently told NJ.com. “For me, I wanted to be creative and put a creative spin on traditional pizza.”
Here are five examples of how Hauke has done just that at Tony Boloney’s:
1. The Taco Taco Taco: It’s a pizza topped with tacos. No, not just taco meat. We’re talking actual tacos as toppings, and lots of them. We’re talking three tacos on a single slice. We’re talking a magical circle of tacos, plus guacamole and sour cream in the middle. Each taco is stuffed with a different meat—mezcal-marinated steak, chicken or brisket—along with Oaxacan cheese. “It might sound INSANE and wrong and an abomination to pizza, but please,” Lindsay Funston wrote for Delish.com in 2018. “It’s an undeniably delicious mash-up. Is it impossible to eat? Kinda. Do you care? Not one bit—grab a bib.”
2. The Jewish Cowboy: In a recent Instagram post about this unorthodox pie, one commenter noted, “Funny because Jews don’t mix cheese and meat lol,” to which Tony Boloney’s drily responded, “Bad Jews do.” Also, this pizza is partially pink, thanks to the babushka beet horseradish sauce. Other toppings include burnt-end brisket, dry aged mozzarella, Havarti cheese and Passover sauce. What is Passover sauce, you might ask? According to Hauke, it’s “essentially what your Jewish grandmother in a moo-moo makes in between snuggling you and asking you why you are not married yet.”
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3. I Will F—in’ Smash You: This one’s the kind of pizza you dare not order in front of your grandmother, Jewish or otherwise, lest you get your mouth washed out with soap. But it features a sesame seed crust and gets topped with mouthwatering smash burgers, dry, aged and smoked mozz, dill pickles, caramelized onions and a drizzle of “smash sauce,” which doesn’t at all sound like something your Jewish grandmother would make.
4. The Supreme Tang: For a taste of Thai on a pie, Hauke offers the Supreme Tang, a chicken-topped pizza like nothing Hoboken has ever seen before. It also boasts a sesame seed crust, but then Hauke turns his attention to the east, topping it off with Thai satay fried chicken, dry aged mozz, cilantro, peanuts and a sriracha Thai ranch dressing.
5. The Flaming Cowboy: We’ve saved the weirdest and most wonderful pizza for last. Hauke made this one for Nicole Russell on “Pizza Wars” and, being Hauke, he described it in colorful language that we mostly cannot repeat on a family-friendly website. We can say that it’s made with braised short ribs, grilled onions, a blend of scamorta and dry, aged, low-moisture mozz, and actual rib bones. He puts all of those ingredients in an oiled pan, folds the 72-hour-fermented dough over the mix, and tucks in more cheese around the sides to get a Detroit-style edge before popping it into the oven. Oh, and after baking it, he adds something called “cowboy juice” and sets the whole blamed thing on fire—then puts out the fire with smoked Stracciatella cheese. We are not making this up.
And those are just a few of the pizzas on the menu at Tony Boloney’s. Check out the company’s website for more, and while you’re there, give the subs a look-see, including the Boloney Rex (drizzled with “caveman sauce”) and the Oui Oui Wee Wee, because you know you’ve always wanted to try French onion cheesesteak on a sandwich.
