A Pizza Unicorn Opens in Greenpoint for Real

Pizzas at Chrissy’s. Photo: Courtesy of Chris Hansell

The city’s hottest, most-difficult-to-get pizza pop-up has finally put down some real roots, and regular people can, in theory, try the lauded pie for themselves. Last night, Chris Hansell hosted a friends-and-family night at Chrissy’s Pizza, the Instagram-first concern he launched in 2021 out of his Bushwick apartment. Pies started landing on the counter shortly after 7 p.m., and groups flowed in while a couple of guys finished working on the awning. Within 30 minutes, the crowd had taken over the sidewalk and an intimidating line had formed. Some people were drinking Modelos, and a few celebratory bottles of wine were uncorked. Action Bronson showed up, and so did Brace Belden and Johnny Hummus. When I went to grab a few seltzers next door, the teenage bodega worker asked, “Is it finally open?”

As of today, yes. Or, sort of. Chrissy’s has soft-opened, though with limited dough. Going forward, it will be open five days a week, from 2 to 10 p.m., closing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Getting here has been a bit of a whirlwind for Hansell, who had planned to open in what was the original Superiority Burger location on East 9th Street. But that didn’t pan out, and since the start of the year, he has been selling late-night pies out of the new Superiority Burger on Avenue A. That was only going to last so long, though. “I was making pizza from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” Hansell says. “It was fun, but it was very late and not a lot of people could come.” When the space became available in Greenpoint, he jumped at the opportunity.

Hype has been kind to Chrissy’s, but it breeds its own resentments. Whole Reddit threads exist to discuss procurement strategies (“How are you guys getting the reservation at Chrissy’s Pizza?”), and anyone who can’t get a pizza becomes skeptical: “Gone in 4 minutes. Let’s be honest, it can’t be that good,” wrote one hater on Instagram. Hansell understands, but there wasn’t much he could do. “People were just upset that they couldn’t get it, but it wasn’t because I was trying to have it be that way,” he points out. “I feel like I was overexplaining it every single week. This is why: It’s just me. I have this little oven that’s normally only for reheating slices at shops. I can only do this many at a time. I can only do it for two hours.”

In Greenpoint, he has installed a couple of Moretti Forni electric ovens — “I’m finally not using my little Bakers Pride anymore, so that’s exciting!” — and Hansell’s pizza is crisp, with a tangy tomato sauce and molten orange mozzarella. It’s a classic New York style, not nouveau, and reminiscent in some ways of downtown favorite Scarr’s. There are no slices here, though. Pies start at $30 for a regular and go up to $36 for the rotating special. “I’m excited to play with meat again,” Hansell says, following his vegetarian residency in the East Village. “I’m going to try to rotate in some square pies or grandmas. Philly tomato pie, the room-temp bakery pizza.”

Photo: Courtesy of Chris Hansell

For now, customers can get anything they want as long as it’s pizza — that’s the only thing on the menu. A Caesar salad may show up down the line, but sandwiches probably won’t, even though his oven has a steam injection for baking bread. Not that he’ll be participating in the sandwich craze. There won’t be sandwich specials, like at L’Industrie and Mama’s Too. “The thing I’m going to focus on right now is getting the perfect garlic knot.” He pauses to consider what he just said. “Or just a good garlic knot.”

The shop has room for maybe six or seven people to eat at the tomato-red laminated counter. Most of the decorations on the walls are references to Valley Stream, the Long Island town where Hansell grew up: a poster for Trees Lounge, which was filmed there; a flier for a Discharge and Bad Brains show that advertised tickets at Slipped Disc Records, Hansell’s childhood record store; a photo of his late father in front of his Valley Stream Auto Parts van. ”I tried to make it look like an old place I would go to with my dad,” he says. “I put in a tin ceiling, but I painted it this weird deep red I would see in old taverns.” After his dad passed away in 2011, Hansell found himself revisiting these places more often. Now, he wants Chrissy’s to honor those memories: “The reason I’m doing this is to honor my dad, who made me a pizza freak at a young-ass age.”