$1 Pizza Is What Montreal Needs
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Montreal certainly isn’t lacking in the drunk food department. Of course, we’ve got no shortage of homegrown favourites like poutine or smoked meat, but the city has further proved its alcoholic culinary excellence with beloved hits like 2 Chow.
As good as we’ve done so far, Montreal should take a cue from New York if we want to make our drunk food scene even stronger. I’m a native New Yorker, and, like many New Yorkers, one of my favourite ways to cap a night of drinking in the city is with a slice of $1 pizza.
It’s exactly what it sounds like: you pay a dollar, and you get a piece of pizza in exchange. It’s hardly the finest slice you’ll ever eat, but it’s more than adequate, especially given the price. The idea started with the cleverly titled 2 Bros $1 Pizza, and it soon became a citywide sensation, with imitators popping up throughout Manhattan. To this day, dollar pizza continues to be amongst the most popular foods for drunk and hungry New Yorkers.
As you’re surely aware, there are quite a few drunk and hungry Montrealers roaming the streets every night of the week, and I have no doubt that they’d go crazy for $1 pizza. Just look at the wild success of 2 Chow—we love being able to drop a single coin and getting rewarded with rib-sticking drunk food. Just imagine stumbling down St. Laurent and having the option of getting either peanut buttery-y chow mein or cheesy pizza with your spare change: it’d be a drunk food innovation Montreal would surely welcome.
Furthermore, the current state of the city’s pizza (link) suggests that getting a slice for a dollar wouldn’t be far beyond our grasp. I’d say that the average $1 slice in New York is about on par with the best Montreal slices, meaning that we’re probably paying more for our pizza than we need to be. Furthermore, our standards for pizza aren’t particularly high as it is, so a slight drop in quality probably wouldn’t be too noticeable.
No matter how evident it’d be, I have no doubt that Montrealers wouldn’t mind, as long as it’d mean being able to pay a loonie and getting a hot slice of pizza in return. It’s not like the city’s drunk food scene is in dire need of an upgrade, but I see no reason not to make it the best it can possibly be.
