After years of research and collaboration, a group of pizza enthusiasts in New Haven is trying to keep the passion alive through a museum exhibition.
The exhibit, called “Pronounced Ah-Beetz,” is located at the New Haven Museum. The exhibit spans two rooms on the museum's top floor. It explores the history of New Haven Pizza with a focus on restaurants like Frank Pepe’s, Sally’s and Modern.
In 2024, a state resolution officially declared New Haven the Pizza Capital of the United States. But long before that designation, many pizza enthusiasts loved the New Haven slice for decades. This included Gorman Bechard, a filmmaker who, in 2020, released a documentary about the history of pizza in New Haven called Pizza: A Love Story.
“I said, let's bring a pizza exhibit to New Haven. I mean, this is really where it should be; this is way before people were calling it the pizza capital. We were calling it the pizza capital,” Bechard said.
Inspired by an exhibit he saw in Chicago, Bechard began a journey to collect items for an exhibit in New Haven. Bechard worked with Colin Caplan, a local historian and the author of a book called “Pizza in New Haven.” Caplan helped to contribute to the documentary. Later, the two collected items for the exhibit.
"We make really good food because of all the cultural connections that we've created. I think what's fascinating is that I always knew about our pizza; I just didn't know that people didn't know about it," Caplan said.
The two collected the items for several years before they finally found a place for them. They met with Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum, who curated the exhibit. He said it was tough to condense more than a century’s worth of history into just a small exhibit.
“Actually, it's more like 140 years at this point in time, and condensing into two rooms is always an issue because you want to focus on both the objects and give them breathing room, but then also the story and just allow the viewer to be comfortable,” Bischoff-Wurstle said.
The exhibit's color and design are based on a traditional pizzeria. One wall is designed to look like a pizza oven. For that footage, Bechard went to Pepe’s to film the inside of an actual pizza oven.
“I spent the day, literally at Pepe’s, with my camera almost melting. I looked into the oven as they tried to get pies around me. You know, just to get that video in there so that when you look into the oven, you see pizzas cooking,” Bechard said.
Frank Pepe's grandson—Francis Roselli—donated several items to the exhibit. But one specific artifact stood out. During a group lunch at the restaurant, Bechard said Roselli walked over to the last booth near a stack of new pizza boxes. He brought back a pizza box and offered it to the group. Inside the new pizza box was an older pizza box top from 1936.
“We're just sitting here talking. He says, pulls the box on. He goes, "Do you guys have any interest in this? And he opens it up, and it's the oldest known pizza box to exist. " It was inside it,” Bechard said. “I'm telling you, we grown men, we were covered in goosebumps seeing this.”
Bischoff-Wurstle said the box shows details that reveal important history. The group said the exhibit tells many more stories and holds more histories. They hope New Haven pizza isn’t just another food trend. The group does what it can to promote the exhibit since its opening.
"I think when you step back from what is what are we actually talking about? We're talking about like Americana. We're talking about immigrants. We're talking about cultural assets that we may take for granted,” Caplan said. “But if everyone's waiting in line, if millions of people are coming to eat New Haven pizza, then there's a reason behind it, and there are people behind it"
The New Haven Museum hosts the Monthly Slice—a series of talks with invited guests to discuss pizza history. In October, Frank Pepe's grandson, Francis Roselli, will speak in celebration of the exhibit’s first full year.
