New York City’s first, hopefully annually, Pizza Week kicks off on Sunday, September, 20th and includes several slice joints in North Brooklyn.

Each of the participating shops have crafted a unique signature slice that will be available for the next two weeks. The slice can’t be something that is already on their menu, but otherwise they were free to use whatever ingredients they wanted.

“Let’s not put caviar and truffles on these things,” said Andrew Young, founder of New York City Pizza Week. “You don’t need it. It just drives up the price.”

Young started working on the project back in January. Before that he had been organizing pizza crawls about once a month. He got to know the pizzeria shop owners, listened to their stories, and wanted to support them. He explored other related projects, but the idea for pizza week clicked one afternoon while riding the subway.

“I started Googling New York City pizza week. When is the next one? Zero results on Google,” he said. After talking to Scott Weiner of Scott’s Pizza Tours who confirmed nobody else had actually hosted an event like this, Young concluded launching a dedicated pizza week himself was the best solution.

That’s when he got to work.

“I created a list of 150 pizza shops throughout the five boroughs, the best shops I could find,” Young says. But when he reached out to the shops, the owners often didn’t get back to him. “The majority of the folks were just so busy, they would glance at it and move on with their day.”

Undeterred, he decided to focus on shops where he already knew the owner. “I just narrowed it down to let me just focus on the shops that I did pizza crawls with that I either took pizza crawls to, or I met along through the discovery of pizza shops along the way.”

He built out a website and spoke with the shop owners about creating their signature slice. Each one includes the story about the owner and how the store came about.

Pizza Week sales are also raising money for Slice Out Hunger, a non-profit organization committed to combatting food insecurity. The organization was founded by fellow pizza enthusiast Scott Weiner.

The goal of the project is also about supporting community shops. Young hopes that new customers coming to the shops for the limited time signature dish also try some of the other menu items.

“I also highlighted other things that they can get at the shop. For example, if you go to Diamond Slice in Greenpoint, you’ll get their signature slice. The other popular item is their Caesar salad slice.”

Young says when he eats pizza these days, he’s usually looking for something unique. “I look at the specials, whatever unique pieces that they’re making there in the week.”

His favorite pizza style is Roman Style, “I think pizza is all for me, pizza is all about that textural component of that crisp, that crunch when I bite into it, something that I don’t get when I eat Neapolitan”

On pizza crawls, Young brings a condiment caddy stocked with spices, hot sauces, chili oils, four different hot honey flavors. “I’m all for adding a little spice to everything I eat,” he explains.

In north Brooklyn, participating shops include Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop, Rome to Brooklyn, Diamond Slice, Stretch Pizza (Domino Park), and Roebling Pizza. If you’re wandering around north Brooklyn, only the Greenpoint Rome to Brooklyn has a featured slice. And there are two Paulie Gee’s signature slices if you’re looking to collect them all. The Manhattan location has a different signature slice than the Brooklyn one since they are managed by different people.

The first week of this event corresponds with San Gennaro. Young says this is a feature not a bug — but an accidental one. He wanted to launch the event this year, but squeezing in another pizza related event was tough. He didn’t want to host pizza week over the summer when a lot of New Yorkers are away – and when a lot of pizza owners close down for a few weeks of vacation. He also didn’t want it overlapping with other existing food festivals.

Pizza week runs from September 20, 2026 to October 4, 2026. For a full list of participating shops, check out the Pizza Week Map.

For a further look into how Pizza Week came about, check out this longer conversation at Red Sauce America.