Cuts and Slices: Brooklyn pizzeria where customers cheerfully wait for hours for a $150 pie
It may be the most expensive pizza in the city and yet it’s found at a takeaway in a suburb with a once fearsome reputation. But fans can’t get enough.
Would you queue up for four hours for a pizza?
What if that pizza cost almost $150? Or $22 just for a single slice?
On a cold winter’s day?
No, you say? The very idea, you say?
Well, in a New York City suburb, far from the hubbub of Manhattan, people are doing just that. And no one’s complaining.
It’s 11.30am, still half an hour before the doors open at Cuts and Slices, and the queue is 30 people deep. And this is a Tuesday; just wait until the weekend.
“We drove two hours to get here from Connecticut,” Kia told news.com.au.
“I’m getting a lasagne slice, jerk chicken and the oxtail.”
“There’s a lot of pizzerias between here and Connecticut,” chimed in her partner Jose “But nothing as unique as this.”
The pair haven’t travelled all this way for pretty pizza; visually they’re more slurpy than showy.
Rather, it’s all about the flavours and unique – and pricey ingredients – that are rarely resting on a pizza base. About as far from a Hawaiian as you can get; it’s flavours that have entranced people from around the corner and around the globe.
To prove that point, news.com.au meets Robin from Berlin.
He’s taken the Subway 45 minutes from his hotel to get to Bed-Stuy.
“We saw it on Instagram back in Germany and we thought it looked dope,” he tells news.com.au.
If you really must, you can get a cheap and cheerful cheese or pepperoni pizza from Cuts and Slices. But why would you when you could grab a slice of chicken and French toast ($A10.75) or Jerk BBQ salmon ($A14.75)? Or if you’re feeling flash, how about the most expensive dish on the menu? A crispy bed slathered with a creamy, garlicky Alfredo sauce topped with plump prawns and hearty chunks of lobster, flecked with black truffle.
Just $US15 ($A22) a slice or $US100 ($A146) for the pie.
But this isn’t some posh pizzeria on the Upper East Side with a waiting list, white tablecloths and a bad attitude. This is little more than a tiny takeaway in the shadow of public housing blocks in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood deep into Brooklyn.
It’s gentrifying now, but the suburb once had such a fearsome reputation it was known as “do or die Bed-Stuy”.
‘Longest line was four hours’
Yet it’s in these incongruous surroundings that married couple Ashlee and Randy McLaren – she was a flight attendant, he still is a part time sneaker salesman – have built a pizza phenomenon with fans worldwide.
“Our longest line was almost four hours long. No lie,” Mr McLaren told news.com.au.
“We had one week where it was freezing, sleet, snow, and they were lining up around the block.
“We were like, this is crazy: we need to hire more people,” added Ms McLaren.
Particularly on the weekend, a several hour wait is not unheard off. Come on a weekday and you may get away with as little as 45 minutes. Having no queue is so rare, they post on their Instagram to encourage people to grab the opportunity.
Not even family can jump the queue.
But it’s not just the flavours that are unique. Cuts and Slices is among a tiny subset of New York’s approximately 2000 pizzerias.
“We’re black owned,” said Mr McLaren, whose family came to the US from the Caribbean island of Trinidad.
“In New York City there’s maybe only five black owned pizzerias. You never hear about black people owning a pizzeria”.
‘With pizza, everyone’s been brainwashed’
When Ashlee, whose family hails from the southern US, and Randy floated the concept of opening a pizza place, their families were puzzled.
They understood heroing the rich and punchy flavours of the Caribbean and the south – but why on pizza? Why not a restaurant?
“We thought, if we’re going to do this, we have to be different” said Mr McLaren.
“Everyone’s been brainwashed to think that pizza equals sauce and cheese with some pepperoni or sausage.
“We’re here to change that and show people that it can be so much more.”
Robin’s getting a slice of the sweet chilli oxtail, the shrimp, and the sweet chilli jerk chicken.
Oxtail is one of Cuts and Slices’ seminal dishes. A signature flavour of Trinidad, there are four varieties to choose from including curry, brown stew and teriyaki.
It’s popular too, with slice after slice – covered in a sheen of thick, meaty, rich beef gravy – walking out of the door.
Couple ‘gave pizza away’ at the start
But when Cuts and Slices opened in 2018, things got off to a slow start. There were no queues.
And that was bad. The couple were pregnant and Randy had sunk his sneaker earnings into the business.
“Before it got crazy, we gave pizza away all the time,” said Mr McLaren.
“We didn’t like the waste, so we’d ask customers to try a slice on us and if people came after we closed we’d just give them a box of pizza.”
With 100,000 followers on his sneakers Instagram and he tried to cross promote.
“It was hard. Some would say ‘You’ve been selling sneakers, what the f*** do you know about pizza’. They didn’t know I’d worked in restaurants for 12 years”.
Nonetheless, he applied the same marketing tactics to pizzas as he did for sneakers.
When the couple created their shrimp and lobster pizza, they initially sold it on one day and made just 25 pies, with each box numbered.
Word got out about the fanciest – and most limited edition – pizza in all of New York could be found deep in the suburbs.
“By the time we sold the last pie, there were five people behind the guy trying to buy slices,” he said.
Quite by chance, another pizza creation went viral on Facebook when a customer raved about it.
Cuts and Slices’ own social media then took off. Their page features them working the line asking expectant customers what dish they were savouring and crucially how far they’d come. And some had come far. One person, said Ms McLaren, claimed they’d come from the North Pole.
More than a pizzeria
Ms McLaren said it’s more than just about selling pizzas. It’s about building a business and giving back to often overlooked areas of New York. They now have over 40 employees.
“We don’t want our staff to just think this is a pizzeria; we’re starting something the world’s never seen. We want to give good opportunities to our community and show these kids that you can grow and be successful.
“I help them with bank accounts and to get passports.”
They also pay half the health insurance costs of their staff, which is not a legal requirement for smaller businesses.
Soon, Cuts and Slices will open a second branch in Queens, close to JFK Airport.
Ms McLaren laughed and said international fans will now be able to jump off the plane and dig into a pie almost straight away.
Outside, Don looked happy as he chowed down on a slice.
“I came here from The Bronx, an hour away.
“I wanted to try the oxtail pizza but there’s so much choice I’m on my second slice now.”
That one was a chicken and turkey bacon Alfredo with black truffle shavings.
“It’s amazing; it’s got a spice kick to it and it’s rich and juicy.”
“As a black man, I’m glad this black owned business is getting the recognition it needs” said another customer from Bed-Stuy.
As 1pm neared and the crowd lengthened, Randy and Ashlee greeted the hungry then ducked in to help get the pies flowing.
“A lot of people don’t think this is the way pizza is supposed to be made,” Ms McLaren said.
“But this is a new way of doing pizza for everyone.”
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