A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from April 17, 2008
Football-Shaped Pizza (Football Pizza)

Pizzas come in many shapes—circular, rectangular, and even football-shaped. The “football pizza” can be cited at least as far back as 1960, but was popularized when the national pizza chain Little Caesar’s introduced the product in December 1996. Other pizza places (such as the Papa Murphy’s chain) followed in offering a football-shaped pizza, especially during the National Football League season and the Super Bowl.
 
The Austin (TX) Chicago-style stuffed pizza chain Mangia introduced a football-shaped pizza on the ESPN2 sports show Cold Pizza in 2006. Mangia’s offers football pizzas during the college football season of the University of Texas Longhorns.
 
Surfboard pizza sometimes has a similar elongated oval shape as does a football-shaped pizza.
   
 
Mangia Pizza (Austin, TX)
Mangia’s innovative football shaped pizzas were featured on the set of ESPN’s Cold Pizza on Friday, September 8. According to Mangia’s Corporate Sales Director, Rell Rice, “We worked with Cold Pizza last year when they did a live broadcast from Austin for the Tech game.  When the producers heard about our football shaped pizzas this year, they asked us to ship some up to New York for them to use for UT-Ohio State game week. They used our stuffed football pizza with ‘Hook ‘em’ on it.”
 
Cold Pizza displayed the pizzas on the set throughout the 15 minute segment and discussed their relationship with Mangia. The host also noted that Mangia was a National Champion having been named the “National Independent Pizza Company of the Year” by Pizza Today magazine. 
 
PR Newswire 
Innovative Trend Continues: Little Caesars Sports Pizza!Pizza!(TM) Latest Creation;
First Football-Shaped Pizzas to be Offered Nationally

December 26, 1996
DETROIT, Dec. 26 /PRNewswire/—Little Caesars(R) Pizza has gone to the gridiron for its latest innovative creation. The Little Caesars Sports Pizza!Pizza! featuring Football!Football!(TM) is two football-shaped pepperoni-topped pizzas, a special game board box and a life-size professional football player poster, all for $10.99 beginning Dec. 26, for a limited time. This is the first football-shaped pizza to be offered by any chain nationally. Player posters that will change weekly feature current football greats Barry Sanders (Detroit), Thurman Thomas (Buffalo), Herschel Walker (Dallas) and John Elway (Denver).
 
Google Groups: alt.pizza.delivery.drivers 
Newsgroups: alt.pizza.delivery.drivers
From: “Another JayBee”


Date: 1999/04/21
Subject: Re: More Hotel Elevator Hell
 
When I worked for Little Squeezer’s a couple of years ago, I had this repeat customer (I always seemed to get him) who would always offer me an extra tip to say “Pizza! Pizza!” or “Delivery! Delivery!”.
 
IC - “Awww, c’mon man, it won’t kill ya to say it! I’ll give ya more money!”
 
Me - (managing a smile) “No. That’ll be $12.78, sir. Good day.”
 
Another JayBee
(Ex-employee of the most gimmick ridden pizza chain in the world!)
Football shaped pizza, basketball shaped pizza (laces drawn in sauce), GIANT pizza, pizza by da foot pizza…... 
 
17 January 2000, Nation’s Restaurant News:
Bacino’s Heart Healthy Pizzas, Chicago, will serve football-shaped pizzas during its Super Bowl XXXIV promotion… 
 
casual.mondays 
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Football-shaped Pizza…What Took So Long?
Looking for a unique food item for your next Bowl Party? Try the Molinaro’s Football Pizza. These individually wrapped frozen pizzas are shaped like a football and come in pepperoni and sausage varieties. The pizzas are 32 oz. and sell for $5.99 - 6.99 each.
 
From what I can tell, you have to go to Phoenix, AZ in order to get one of these. Others will surely follow suit and begin to reshape their pizzas as well.
 
Austin (TX) Chronicle (September 15, 2006)
Food-o-File
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
You know this town is in full football-fever mode when even Mangia pizzas can be purchased in the shape of a football for your tailgating pleasure! Yep, those wacky Mangia guys searched the world over for a football-shaped pizza pan, and now pizza lovers can order an award-winning stuffed pie shaped like a football and garnished with the name of their favorite team or player. The football pizzas will feed the same number of people as a large stuffed Mangia pie and are the same price. They’re available at any of the six outlets around town (http://www.mangiapizza.com). And, in case you missed it, right in the middle of all the pregame hoopla surrounding the Ohio State showdown last week, a very cool Mangia pizza bearing the traditional hook ‘em was featured during a 15-minute segment on ESPN’s Cold Pizza morning show. The Mangia guys had fed an ESPN crew when they were in town last year for a live broadcast of the Texas Tech game. When the producers heard about the new football-shaped pizzas, they ordered up a batch and featured them prominently on the show. That’s a play of the week for sure…
 
17 November 2006, Austin (TX) American-Statesman, “Austin Inc.,” pg. D1:
Mangia to ship pizzas nationwide with FedEx.
 
Mangia Chicago Stuffed Pizza has gone nationwide via cyberspace.
 
The Austin-based pizza chain will now ship deep-dish pies ordered online to anywhere in the United States.
 
The pizzas, shipped via FedEx, are sent half-baked and flash-frozen. Customers add the sauce and finish cooking the pizzas.
 
Prices range from $18 to $25, plus shipping.
 
Mangia makes football-shaped pizzas for game season and will ship heart-shaped pizzas for Valentine’s Day.
 
Mangia Pizza (Austin, TX)
Football pizzas for NFL Playoffs and Super Bowl -
Nationwide Shipping Available

Austin, Texas January 15, 2008 - The holiday season may be over but that doesn’t mean the celebrations ard fun times are.  That’s because the NFL playoffs are here, culminating with the Super Bowl on February 3rd and what better way to show your pigskin passion than with Mangia Chicago Stuffed football shaped pizzas.
 
Football and pizza go hand-in-hand and Mangia brings them together with their award winning stuffed or thin pizzas, baked in a football shaped pan, laces included.  Tailgaters, watch parties, booster clubs and all football fans can show their football spirit with fantastic football pizzas from Mangia. Mangia will even customize the football pizzas with your favorite team’s name or player’s number.  (Nationwide overnight pizza shipping available for football fans outside Austin.)
 
According to Mangia co-owner, Mark Negro, “People love to express themselves with great food and our football shaped pizzas are a natural for football fans at every level.  We know that given the level of football fever in central Texas our football pizzas will be really popular and fun.”
 
Mangia’s Catering Department will take it a step further by offering an all-inclusive football party meal package, for groups of 12 or more, with football pizzas, bountiful house or Caesar salad and house-baked dessert cookies and brownies. Plates and service ware are included with the deal.  All fans have to do is give Mangia’s Catering folks a call at 512-374-0800 and let us deliver a fantastic meal for a great football party.
 
Ship a football shaped pizza anywhere in the continental U.S. via Mangia’s e-commerce pizza delivery.  Share the football spirit with your fellow fans from Dallas to New England.  Simply go to http://www.mangiapizza.com, click on the “Order a Pizza” icon and in a matter of seconds, you’ve ordered an overnight shipment of Mangia pizza. 
 
Mindi’s Party Ideas
Super Bowl Party Games and Ideas
January 17th, 2008 . by Mindi
(...)
For other food, pizza goes with football perfectly.  Usually I would come up with recipes, but honestly, who needs to cook when pizza can be delivered?  Last year, Papa Murphy’s sold football shaped pizzas.

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Thursday, April 17, 2008 • Permalink


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