For its second year, the Steel City PizzaFest promises to be bigger, better… and cheesier.
The outdoor pizza festival will return to Arsenal Park on Saturday, May 14 with a dozen pizza shops participating, plus a craft show and live music throughout the day.
PizzaFest is the brainchild of local DJ and event producer Michael Devine, who came up with the idea while he was attending a food truck roundup a few years ago.
“There were all of these great food trucks around, but I thought to myself ‘I could really go for a slice of pizza right now,’” he says. “And I just thought that having a pizza fest, with just pizza places, was a great idea.”
Though pizza festivals have taken place in Chicago and Los Angeles, what makes Pittsburgh’s Pizza Fest different is the variety of pizza places participating.
“Other pizza fests only have places that have brick ovens on site, and I thought that really limits a lot of shops,” Devine says. “So I came up with the idea of a reverse delivery.”
At the festival, there’s an area blocked off for the shops to deliver pies, which are then sold by the slice to festival goers. Shops go back and forth from the festival to their shops, delivering fresh pies throughout the day.
Pizza restaurants from Millvale, Bloomfield and Lawrenceville are participating this year, including Angelo’s, Calente, Spak Bros., Demore’s Hambones, Frank’s and last year’s ‘People’s Choice’ contest winner Grazziano’s. More participants will be announced as the date gets closer, and Devine says that this year, there will also be at least two shops making pizza on site using mobile ovens.
In addition to all the pizza eating, the Spring It On craft show will feature local crafters and artisans with handmade products for sale, and Spak Bros. will be hosting a pizza eating contest, too.
The free, dog-friendly event kicks off at noon, and runs until 6:00 p.m.
For more information, visit Steel City Pizza Fest’s event page.
Will there be a pizza fest this year, coming soon?