Years ago, when someone in Milwaukee wanted De Marinis pizza, they simply went to the one location. Now they get an unwanted debate.

Rumor (Willis) has it that somewhere along the line, the DeMarinis family was split by a dispute powerful enough to cause the DeMarinis sons — Dom and Phil — to branch out and open their own DeMarinis pizza parlor not but two blocks away from MaMa DeMarinis’. I like to think it was all Jenga-related.

Though family feuds are never a good thing, especially when talking about the TV game show Family Feud, we thought it only fair to give both DeMarinis a try to see if one family’s heart-wrenching rift delivered us the sweet fruits of another bomb-ass Bay View pizza joint. Spoiler: It did.
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"A pizza divided against itself cannot be purchased at coupon price."

It’s impossible to deny the impact pizza has on the modern world. But few realize the immense role the pizza pie played throughout history. Doctors of Za tirelessly sifted through books, unearthed and analysed hidden documents, and even did that thing from movies where you look at old newspaper headlines on microfiche really late at night when everyone else has left the library and you’re totally exhausted. Here is just one of our findings.

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When a fresh pan of pizza is presented to me, its skin undulating with subtle bubbles that rise and fall anxiously, my first impulse is to snag a slice at once and gorge myself with savage abandonment. The problem with this reckless act of gluttony is that pizza fresh from the oven possesses a self-defense mechanism to thwart its overzealous predators. This self-defense mechanism comes in the form of tongue burn. Insatiable as it is, fresh pizza does not want to be ravaged with desperate urgency. No. Pizza, like no other delicious food, demands a grace period of reverent appreciation and heart-pounding patience. Eaters who defy the respectful ground rules inherent in fresh pizza by wolfing down a slice with urgent rapture are punished with a scalding burn on the roof of their mouths. With the proper mindset, it’s obvious why pizza is my favorite food. Pizza shares so many correlations with the sort of beautiful woman who would take a chance on spending some frisky time between the sheets with a guy like me.
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I still have trouble figuring out exactly where Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward ends and Walker’s Point begins. I’ve deduced that I’ve probably entered Walker’s when things get just a bit shittier looking, when the crumbling brick facades of no-longer-functional factories become slightly more prevalent, when the faint sound of boxcar hobos ironically singing acapella versions of Rick Astley songs hangs delicately in the dingy metropolitan air. And there are probably signs too.

Besides that, landmarks like the continually steaming manhole outside Solid Gold Gentleman’s Club, the Allen Bradley clock tower and the always delicious Conjito’s serve as apt indicators of Walker’s Point presence to wide-eyed Northwoods hayseeds like myself. But in terms of Pizza Topography, Marchese’s Olive Pit is — bar none — the neighborhood’s highest point of elevation.
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Josh Rank is a friend of the site.

About half our writers know him; I think Sto Cazzo briefly lived with him, and I can vaguely remember drunkenly playing Silver Strike Bowling against him the same night I got lost in downtown Milwaukee and puked immediately after trying to jump a parking meter (or something similar to a parking meter).

But he’s not just a DoZ friend. He’s also a hell of a writer. Since day one, we have linked his blog, These Things I Know, which is equal parts hilarious and insightful. And earlier this year, he self-published his first book, Reflection in the Crosswalk, a story of a 15-year-old boy’s death and the impact it has on a small town.

The former Appleton and Milwaukee resident now lives in Atlanta. He was gracious enough to write a guest review of a pizzeria in his neighborhood. It is below.
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Riverwest. It, with South Milwaukee, remains one of the few regional mysteries yet to be thoroughly explored in my still scant inhabitation of the City of Festivals.

I once met with a publisher at a coffee haus on Humboldt, I went to a few shows in the neighborhood, bought an $8 pair of grey slacks at ReThreads that leave no questions in regard to the exact contours of my cock’n'balls, and that’s about it.

Apart from those three things, I’ve learned that all the crustpunkers I know live or routinely hang there, Ronnie got mugged in Riverwest a few years back and Lakefront Brewery began there. Basically, I know shit about it. And after my inaugural Riverwest meal at NYPD, something tells me I probably need not investigate it much further.
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The square mile around Milwaukee’s famed Brady Street plays host to its fair share of pizzerias.

Zaffiro’s straight up owns the Eastside (motive for burning down Pizza Man?). Crisp offers douchetanks tasty slices and club music at bar time — same goes for Pizza Shuttle (minus the club music and plus red Gatorade in the soda fountain). Even Zayna’s is tasked with serving up hot za, fried corn nuggets and Lo-Carb Monster to drunken local pariahs.

Then there’s Meglio Pizzeria, tucked away down Humboldt Avenue in, what pretty much looks like, a house near the banks of the ever-brown, used-Band Aid strewn Milwaukee River. Meglio’s less-than-unshitty location combined with its fairly truant MKE pizza presence and overriding awkwardness makes it the Daniel Baldwin of Eastside pizza joints. Or was it Billy Baldwin? See what I mean!?!
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It's somewhere in this fucker.

Eau Claire is known for many things — La Crosse Lager, the mighty Chippewa Falls, UW-Whitewater and the Minnesota Twins, to name just a few.

Okay, so Eau Claire isn’t known for shit… except being annoyingly far away from everywhere else, and Bon Iver’s falsetto occasionally echoing out from the woods.

But, as I found when I paid Eau Claire my innaugral visit recently, Pizza Del Re is pretty alright too.
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DoZ reader Dan sends along this link (via another DoZ reader KLWillis45) that proves to be one of the most important maps you’ll ever view. It details whether an area has more pizza parlors, gun shops and strip clubs.

Red represents Pizza, Green is Guns and Yellow is Strip Clubs. Futher proof I made the right decision when I moved to Milwaukee.

Yep, I ate here.

It is one of the great ironies of Wisconsin pizza patronage that things that are taken as pizza law elsewhere–that crust should never be able to compared to any cracker (except Carson Daly), that sauce should not be the consistency of the stuff on spaghetti, that pizza should be fluffy yet crispy, not taste like it was microwaved and be made with the best ingredients–are treated as optional here. Which explains how I found myself in a basement restaurant in Minneapolis’ warehouse district at noon on Easter Sunday, eating in a place that can be easily described as “stainless-steel-friendly,” surprised as shit that the pizza was melting my face off for its awesomeness.

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