The bitter feud that's rocked the pizza world cast a shadow over a buzzy new pizza festival this weekend, even though Somerville's Dragon Pizza didn't attend.
Dave Portnoy, the founder and owner of Barstool Sports, debuted a pizza festival to celebrate his popular One Bite Pizza Reviews in New York City on Saturday. It was billed as "the greatest gathering of pizzerias...ever!" and Dragon Pizza — which Portnoy recently dubbed "The Worst Pizza Place in America" in a fiery review that went extremely viral — wasn't among the roughly three dozen shops taking part.
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But its presence was felt anyway.
An attendee gave Portnoy a custom-made shirt depicting the now infamous argument, according to Portnoy's social media, while the owner of Brooklyn shop Luigi's Pizza asked Portnoy if his shirt wasn't too small.
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That was a reference to the expletive-laden shouting match between Portnoy and Dragon Pizza owner Charlie Redd that broke out halfway through the review. Redd interrupted the filming to tell Portnoy to get away from his store, referring to the Barstool Sports founder's reputation and quick-hit reviews on social media, with Portnoy firing back insults about Redd's shirt being too small.
Dragon Pizza, for its part, had Portnoy on the mind as well this weekend, posting to social media that it's now selling a "Worst Pizza Place in America" T-shirt and sharing an image of a new special pizza on offer with "plenty of PARM" — a reference to the low score of 6.4 that Portnoy gave Dragon Pizza's slice, citing its floppiness and strong parmesan flavor.
For years, the outspoken founder of Barstool Sports, who once lived in Somerville, has rated pizzerias across the U.S. and then uploaded his video reviews to his YouTube channel One Bite Pizza Reviews. But this one was the most viral thing he's done "in a long time," Portnoy said in a recent interview on Barstool's "The Kirk Minihane Show."
Redd has said he's received death threats over the review, which also led to a flood of one-star reviews. In a recent interview with Bon Appétit, Redd said he had been wanting to confront Portnoy since the day he first opened Dragon Pizza.
On Friday, The Washington Post published a story about Portnoy's outsized influence in the world of pizza. New York Pizza tour operator Scott Wiener told the newspaper that he is "the most influential person in pizza in the country, and every pizzeria in the country, with the exception of very few, is patiently waiting for the day that he walks through the door."
