Pizza Box Art Show at Spak Brothers Pizza with Common Wealth Press

This Friday, August 1, if you order a medium pizza from Spak Brothers pizza you’ll receive a limited edition pizza box with a screen print by one of four Common Wealth Press artists: Mark Bogacki, Everyday Balloons, Dan Rugh, and Keith Caves.

Pizza boxes are unique and the perfect canvas to paint on. Your art reaches nearly everyone, and it provides some joy to the pizza enthusiasts who has something nice to look at in their passenger seat as they drive home to live out their pizza fantasy.

Pittsburgh has been blowing up on the pizza map lately. With Pizza Cono opening earlier this year and the Return to Pizza Dojo taking place just last weekend—there’s no shortage of pizza news and innovation in Pittsburgh. 

I talked with Dan Rugh a bit about this art exhibition. Why pizza boxes? Why now? What is it about pizza that brings worlds together?

PWWM: Why put art on pizza boxes? 

Dan Rugh (DR): well with that kind of attitude, why put anything anywhere. For serious though, it’s a big flat white surface just screaming for artwork. How can’t you just start drawing on it?
Plus you get to flip it open and BAM theres pizza there…and if you’re fast enough you can eat it all yourself. 
PWWM: What is it about pizza that brings communities and cultures together? It’s a universal phenomenon and I’m interested in hearing your take on things.
DR: If you have pizza, people want the pizza and will be nice to you to get the pizza. 
I think what you are saying “brings communities and cultures together” is actually just a larger universal ploy of sneaky individuals gunning for each others food. 
PWWM: What do you think of the Pizza Pittsburgh scene lately? With Pizza Boat and the latest Pizza Dojo event, it’s really blowing up. 
DR: Theres a scene? What does that mean?
Besides that, im cool with the dojo shit talking pizza fight, thats awesome. There should be more shit talking amongst people. Especially sneaky individuals gunning for each others food.
PWWM: Is this about getting your art in front of pizza enthusiasts? Or are you implying that pizza itself is art, the box it comes in should also be art?
DR: We are pals with Spak brothers. You can’t fight the natural flow of events. We are artists, they make pizza. It was inevitable. 
This Friday, remember to call Spak Brothers at 412-362-SPAK (7725) to get your medium pizza decorated by the artists of Common Wealth Press.

Return to Pizza Dojo - Meet the Combatants

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The Return to Pizza Dojo (Why they didn’t spell it dough-jo is beyond me) is this Friday, July 25. I wrote about the feud between Pizza Boat and Bread and Salt last week, but I wanted to get to know the entrants a bit better.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. These are pizzaiolos that are willing to do nearly anything to win this competition. Empires have been won and lost on pizza competition, and this is no exception so you know tensions are high.

Both Pizza Boat  and Bread and Salt’s response to “tell me about your role in the Return to Pizza Dojo” reads like fan fiction from an episode of WWE’s Monday Night Raw  but instead of wrestling they’re making pizza.

Too good to edit, here’s what they had to say about the competition.

The “mysterious” Bread and Salt on pizza, pizza dojo, and life lessons

Who I am and my background are of little importance. There is no Pizza but the Pizza. The Pizza is of importance. I serve the Pizza. I pray five times a day with my face turned towards Naples. I only wish to express and share the true nature of the Pizza. Everything else is falsehood and frivolity. I need no strategy. The boys on the Pizza Boat mean well, but do not know the true depth and power of the Pizza. Their boat will sink. Friday, all will bear witness.

Really blows open the whole Return to Pizza Dojo.

Here’s Jeff from Pizza Boat on Bread and Salt and childish antics

Bread and Salt is Rick Easton, a transplant from Virginia and a guy who can bake sometimes, if someone provides him the means. And we can just assume that Joey Hilty is part of his camp at this point too. Joe’s a Livermore henchman who originally came up with the Pizza Dojo concept and pitched it to Rick, Matt, and I as a collaborative project to bring the oft-feuding pizzaiolo community together in order to push each other further creatively. But as the night of the initial Dojo drew closer, Rick and Joe veered off course unfortunately, resorting to the childish antics you’ve been seeing online.


I feel like Matt and I are pretty easy going, and we can take as much trash talk as we dish out, but Rick’s been taking things increasingly further, recruiting help online–essentially Twitter trolls to come up with his retorts. He said he’s even paying for designers to photoshop images for him in order to try and humiliate us that way too. Not sure where he got the money for this… from what I understand he’s been living off of Livermore’s scraps and whatever he can manage to get off of us for free–which we’re about ready to cut him off from.


Not to say that we’re frightened. We’re just annoyed, and it’s kind of sad. I mean this is an adult. At first we kind of looked up to him. But to threaten to poison our starter, sneak salt into our tomatoes, and urinate in our sanitizer bucket, is a little beneath where we thought his constitution lays. I think something must have cracked in his head– from the loneliness, malnutrition, the fact that his bakery STILL isn’t open, who knows. I’m sure his life is stressful, and thank god these nights have been cool so it’s actually probably comfortable for him to sleep out on the street.


Our plan is to take the high road during the Dojo, of course. We’ll plan a couple pizzas that we’ve been testing and hope people will enjoy and respect, hope to gain some respect from Rick and Joey (if they have any at all to give), and have a good time slinging some pizzas, because that’s what’s fun for us, and exhibiting that along with the discipline involved is what Pizza Dojo should be about.

Will there be blood at this event? Steel chairs? A cage to fight in afterwards? I’m sure at least two of those are a certain. 

The Return to Pizza Dojo takes place Friday July 25, at 6pm in the Bar Marco lot in the Strip District. If you enjoy pizza in the slightest you need to be there to witness Pittsburgh Pizza History.

The streets will run red with blood and sauce - two Pittsburgh pizza upstarts ignite pizza rivalry

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For a long time Pittsburgh has suffered from stale pizza competition. Well, lack of competition, really. There’s the “Mineo’s vs Aiello’s” battle, which has become too convenient for the common Pittsburgher. If there was actually competition between the two we would see pizza innovation! New recipes, new technology. Instead, it’s the equivalent of two old folks sitting on opposite porches groaning at each other. 

But lately, there’s been a slight shift in the pizza scene. If the wind is blowing from the Strip District in just the right way, you can smell the innovation of Pizza Boat. To quote myself, “I predict big things coming from [Pizza Boat] in the future.”

For the past few weeks they’ve killed it next to Bar Marco. Cranking out some of the best pizza Pittsburgh has ever seen. Fresh, smart, and just perfect. It introduced a level of pizza that blows the standards out of the water.

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But there’s a  competitor in town that is willing to answer the call for pizza competitors: Bread + Salt.

I don’t know too much about Bread + Salt. I know they competed in the first pizza dojo. And I know they love trash talking. Exhibit A, B, and C:

The Return to Pizza Dojo will open old wounds, stuff them with fresh basil, and cauterize the wound shut with some hot mozzarella. In the wake of the Pizza Dojo  will be sauce, dough, cheese, and a few bruised pizzaiolos.  And you need to be there to witness it on Friday, July 25th, at Bar Marco.

But this is the price of progress. This is what it takes to spur the Pittsburgh pizza landscape that’s willing to crown a pizza place other than Mineo’s as “the best pizza.” This is the beginning of a long pizza journey, young grasshopper. 

Backwards Pizza? A Return to the Pizza Dojo? What Could It Mean?

Today I saw a retweet from the folks at Pizza Boat from the Bread and Salt Twitter account.

That graffiti is mysterious to say the least. Is this the first we’re seeing of a Joker-caliber villain who’s running a secret pizza cartel here in Pittsburgh?

The image looks like a royal pizza cutter. A scepter that is used to both rule over royal subjects and cut a royal pizza. Perhaps a throw back to Queen Margherita, the namesake of the classic margherita pizza. 

Just when I thought I was beginning to grasp the concept, I received these replies:

There’s some Zodiac Pizza Mystery stuff happening here. But we’ll get to the bottom of this, and the pizza dojo, one way or another.

Much like the Midwest, the traditional pizza you find in downtown Chicago is wide, flat, and boring.

This pizza is from Pizano’s. There’s a few in the Chicago area. Their claim to fame is that they were “featured on Oprah.” In what capacity I do not know.

Was their shop in the background during a remote segment? Did Jim Carey, willing to do anything for a laugh to reignite his career, bring a Pisano’s pizza onto the set? We may never know.

But I do know that this pizza would have a hard time sticking out on the east coast. There was a cardboard characteristic to the crust, and the cheese simply sat there. It was charmless and was the closest thing to a corpse I have ever eaten.

I ended up leaving three quarters of the pizza in my hotel refrigerator. I’m sure whoever cleaned the room was insulted that this pizza was left as a tip.

Perhaps their deep dish pizza is where they put all their effort. Why bother to impress an obvious tourist with a flat pizza who will only compare it to the superior easy coast slice? It’s a lose-lose.

Pisano’s may have a stellar deepdish and I simply chose poorly. Perhaps someone out there can testify that Pisano’s is worth visiting? Oprah, I’m looking at you.

Pizza Boat Interview - Transporting Perfect Pizza Around Pittsburgh Neighborhoods

I love pizza. And I especially love pizza that’s within striking distance of my home. If I can walk a few blocks and return with a piping hot pie that I can eat in the safety of my pizza-proof home, I’m yours. 

Pizza Boat dropped anchor down the street from me a few weeks ago and I had to pay a visit. Back in February someone asked me if I had eaten from the deck of the Pittsburgh Pizza Boat.  I finally did, and it was as equally exciting as discovering a trove of buried treasure. 

I interviewed Jeff Ryan, who’s a co-founder of Pizza Boat. He was doing a lot of the cooking and I’m thankful he took a few minutes to talk to me about what makes the Pizza Boat special. Caution: This video is full of amazing pizza and top-tier craftsmanship.

I loved the Pizza Boat and I predict big things coming from them in the future. I’m particularly fond of their nomad lifestyle. You never know where they’ll pop up, but if you see them you can bet it’s a place you want to be.

You can keep up with them on Twitter and they seem to have a calendar on their website. Get out your binoculars. compass and map. Your mission is to track down pizzaboatpgh today.