The door at Dragon Pizza in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a sign reading, “We are not talking about it, orders only,” on Friday, Sept. 1, 2023.
After being called "The Worst Pizza Place in America" by one of the country's most influential pizza reviewers, business is apparently booming at Somerville's Dragon Pizza.
The Davis Square shop was catapulted into the spotlight after he got into a fiery fight on camera with Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports during one of his internet-famous one-bite pizza slice reviews. The video shows the owner, Charlie Redd, trading insults with Portnoy, outside the shop.
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Portnoy has many devoted fans, and in the wake of the video being released on Thursday, angry comments have poured onto posts from Dragon Pizza. Redd told Boston.com he's gotten death threats.
A sign up on the door of the shop on Friday urged people inside to avoid talking about "it," presumably referring to the incident.
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But the feud has also sent orders skyrocketing, according to Dragon Pizza's social media accounts, which reported selling out of pizza on Saturday and Monday.
"Thanks. To this team. To our community. To LOVE over HATE in this unbelievable ugly situation of trolls attacking every aspect of us," read a caption on the shop's post on Saturday.
It closed Tuesday, the shop said: "We are completely sold out and need a day to prepare for the rest of the week. Thank you to our amazing staff and supporters. Couldn’t do it without y’all."
There was no answer when NBC10 Boston called Dragon Pizza on Wednesday.
Portnoy, who said he once lived in Davis Square, is known for rating pizzerias across the U.S. and then uploading his video reviews to his YouTube channel "One Bite Pizza Reviews."
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In his review of Dragon Pizza, which was uploaded to YouTube on Thursday as "The Worst Pizza Place in America" and remains pinned on his X (formerly Twitter) account, Portnoy gave the Somerville shop a low score of 6.4, taking issue with what he called the pizza's floppiness and strong parmesan flavor.
"It's a floppy mess," Portnoy said. "Strong parmesan ... this is an acquired taste. If you get this, know you’re going to get hit with a left, right in the face with parmesan.”
"It looked better in the case."
While Portnoy was in the middle of recording his negative review of Dragon Pizza, Redd came outside telling him, "Dave, enjoy your pizza as any customer, but I don't appreciate what you do coming in and judging a business with one bite."
"I hope you enjoy your pizza, but I don't appreciate what you do to small businesses," Redd reiterated, something Portnoy took issue with.
Portnoy shot back, claiming, "I've actually helped so many small businesses. With this bit, now I can say peacefully, this pizza's trash."
Portnoy later added he's raised $50 million for small businesses.
Many, many expletives were exchanged between the two as the pizza review turned into a profanity-laced shouting match with insults flowing freely, including about the size of Redd's T-shirt.
At one point, Redd called Portnoy a joke, another jab that "El Presidente" countered, saying that he's sold his business that he founded in 2003 twice for hundreds of millions and then bought it back for "a buck" -- Portnoy was once again named the owner of his media brand after buying it back from Penn Entertainment in August.
The nearly 10-minute review-turned-expletive-laden rant ends with Portnoy saying, "You know what the best part of that was? I gave it a ridiculously low score before he came out."
On Yelp, reviews of the business were temporarily blocked due to increased public attention.
"While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events," an alert on the pizzeria's Yelp page reads. "Please note that we apply this same policy regardless of the business and regardless of the topic at issue. If you’re here to leave a review based on a first-hand experience with the business, please check back at a later date."
Many have taken to social media to weigh in on the controversy, dragging Redd for getting into an argument with Portnoy.
