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San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
Jesse Perez prepares slices of pizza at Broadway Delicatessen.
A slice of pizza from Broadway Delicatessen
Broadway Delicatessen is one of very few places to find pizza by the slice in downtown San Antonio.
Jesse Perez finishes a slice of pizza by brushing butter on the crust at Broadway Delicatessen.
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice.
Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally. The population density of those two behemoths stands at 27,000 and 12,000 people per square mile, respectively. In San Antonio, that number is 3,000 people per square mile according to the latest U.S. Census data.
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
Pizza by the slice works in cities where people's homes, jobs and after-hours fun are all within a quick stroll of each other. In San Antonio, there are a few parts of town like that such as downtown, the Pearl and the St. Mary's Strip, but for the most part. we're hopping in our cars and cruising across the city's sprawling 505 square miles — more than twice the size of Chicago — for our commutes and our meals.
In those areas of town where people do walk to commute or workers are willing to walk to lunch, pizza by the slice entrepreneurs have found some success.
Two slices of pizza from Broadway Delicatessen
Arnold Mendoza opened Broadway Delicatessen in late 2021 on Broadway just a block off of Houston Street. The San Antonio native fell in love with the pizza by the slice restaurants he was exposed to while working on the East Coast and wanted to bottle that magic for diners here.
Related: Mike Sutter's Top 10 best pizza by the slice in San Antonio
His earliest intention for what eventually became Broadway Delicatessen, which serves slices of pizza, sandwiches and hot dogs, was to launch it as a spot exclusively dedicated to slices. That plan changed as he entered discussions with his landlord, who suggested opening a deli instead. But pizza remains close to Mendoza's heart, and he wasn't about to give up that dream.
What resulted was a place modeled in the spirit of a New York pizza by the slice restaurant, but modified to fit the space. Instead of a sprawling display case loaded with a dozen or more prebaked pies for customers to choose from, he only makes cheese pizzas, which customers can top as desired before the slices are reheated. Those slices are brought to a gooey crisp in a small but high-powered convection oven instead of a massive deck oven.
The results, he said, have proven a hit.
"We put a lot of effort into this pizza," Mendoza said. "I've had people from NY tell me, 'Wow, this is the best.' That means a lot to me."
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
While his restaurant is only a few steps away from Houston Street and the Alamo, Mendoza said tourists aren't a huge part of his customer base. The most dependable patrons, he said, have turned out to be office workers and a legion of valet drivers from nearby hotels who drop in for a quick slice before hoofing it back to their respective posts. Mendoza said the pizza by the slice part of his business has grown slowly but steadily, and now accounts for roughly 50 percent of his revenue.
"It took at least a good two to three months before we saw a good lunch business," he said. "I'm just now starting to see people from the Frost Tower and The Rand Building who are making the trek over. I do get it because of the time constraints. They have to walk 10 to 15 minutes to and from their offices."
Broadway Deli occupies a petite space on the ground floor of a building on Broadway downtown with many small storefronts, and that's what makes the math work selling $4 slices. That equation starts to fall apart in larger restaurants, even if they are located downtown in an area with lots of pedestrians.
On ExpressNews.com: Broadway Delicatessen brings East Coast sandwiches, pizza to S.A.
Restaurateur Stefan Bowers opened the sprawling 2,900-square-foot Playland on Houston Street in 2018, and the pizzeria quickly earned acclaim for its rustic wood-fired pies topped with high-quality ingredients. Bowers briefly sold those pies by the slice, an effort that only lasted six months. At $5 per slice, the numbers simply didn't add up to cover Playland's five-figure rent.
Ultimately, he dropped slices altogether before closing the restaurant for good last month.
Jesse Perez prepares slices of pizza at Broadway Delicatessen.
The profit margins on pizza, whether whole or by the slice, are relatively low, Bowers noted. At Playland, pizzas were priced at $11 to $19 and multiple customers would often fill up by sharing a single pizza. By contrast, he said, the dinners he puts out while serving as chef at the swanky seafood spot Rebelle in The St. Anthony hotel could cost $60 or more per person.
"Four people can share a single pizza, but four people are not going to share a plate of halibut, and that's where pizza gets you," Bowers said. "With seafood you have a very high food cost, but you make a drastically higher margin."
On ExpressNews.com: Discover San Antonio's best pies with 52 Weeks of Pizza
Slices of pizza were never on the table at the celebrated restaurant Il Forno in the Lone Star Arts District. While the area does receive some spurts of pedestrian traffic during monthly ArtWalk events, the neighborhood is largely devoid of foot traffic during the day. Instead of high volume slices, Garcia serves whole, painstakingly crafted Neapolitan-style pies that are worth a drive.
That decision, Garcia said, had as much to do with Il Forno's small kitchen space as the nature of pedestrian traffic in the area.
Il Forno cooks its entire menu that includes meatballs, salads pasta and more in addition to pizza, in a small wood-fired oven that takes up a comparatively tiny four-by-four-foot space as opposed to the hulking gas-powered deck ovens that can cook a dozen or more pies at a time found in many New York-style slice joints. Those ovens burn at a much lower temperature, typically around 500 degrees, instead of the scorching 900 degrees Garcia's oven hits.
San Antonio may be the seventh-largest city in America, but you wouldn't know it if you go looking for that stalwart bastion of the metropolitan lunch hour: a hot pizza sold by the slice. Bustling pedestrians shuffling to and from their apartments or offices while noshing on a slice are easy find in places such as New York City or Chicago. But San Antonio is just built differently — literally.
"That New York slice requires a certain type of pizza to be made in advance, and you have to have a certain type of oven to reheat that slice, and that’s not what I have," Garcia said. "The main difference is we’re cooking a product we can't reheat. Everything we do is done to order."
That a la minute approach results in a spectacular pizza rated one of the best in San Antonio during the Express-News's 52 Weeks of Pizza series. But Garcia would never sell those pies by the slice. His blazing-hot oven and dough recipe create a pie that's best enjoyed on the spot the second it emerges blistered and bubbling from the oven.
Back at Broadway Delicatessen, Mendoza remains bullish on pizza by the slice. The uptick in sales has spurred plans to add a second oven in the near future. The equipment will allow him to prepare twice as many pizzas, which means a whole lot more slices downtown, and that's a win for all of us.
pstephen@express-news.net | Twitter: @pjbites | Instagram: @pjstephen
Paul Stephen moved to San Antonio from North Carolina in 2017 to join the Express-News Taste team. In that time, he's cooked through about 1,000 recipes, noshed at more than 200 restaurants and seriously considered getting a map of the city's grocery stores tattooed on his arm for easy reference. He cannot be trusted around your cookbook collection.