The pizza crawl is only a week away, so it is time we nailed down our plans.

So here’s how it is going to go (we hope).

Tuesday, February 20. We hit three of New Haven’s most famed pizzerias, to see if their pies are truly world class. We’ve learned that Sally’s, one of the city’s most famous joints, is closed for two weeks, taking them out of the running. Their loss. We still have plenty of great pizzerias to try out.

At 3:00 pm, we meet at FRANK PEPE’s on Wooster. Everyone says there will be a line. Okay. Those who are going, turn up and get in line. Parris and I will do the same. We could have anywhere from twenty to fifty people turning up for the crawl, so there’s no way we can all sit together, but we’ll make do. Parris will eat with one group, I’ll eat with another, we’ll both try and tablehop while we’re grabbing a few slices. If we have to wait an hour in line, we wait an hour in line and make friends there.

After we’re done at Pepe’s, we play it by ear, find someplace to hang out, have coffee and a drink or three.

At 6:00 pm, we adjourn across town to MODERN APIZZA for our second round of pies. Maybe there will be a line there as well, maybe there won’t. Same drill.

And for the true pizza lovers and the late night crowd, come 9:00 pm, we head over to BAR to try mashed potato pizza amongst “Alternative Lifestyle Night.” I’m told that BAR has private rooms upstairs. Maybe one of you locals can call them up and see about reserving one for us from 9pm until whenever. We’ll end the evening with some brews and pepperonis.

That’s the plan.

So… who’s coming? I know a lot of you responded on the last thread, but time passes, plans change, etc, so let’s hear from you again. And, if you can, please let us know whether you will be along for the whole crawl, or just for part of it… and if so, which part. That will help us figure out how many pizza crawlers to expect at each joint.

My thanks to all the locals who posted comments in the last thread, made phone calls, and helped put this together. You’ve all been great. We need one point man to coordinate all this, however, and it can’t be me, since I’ll be on the road as of Thursday… ergo, I hererby appoint ZEN BLADE, aka Dennis Mishler, as our semi-official Master of the Games for the Pizza Crawl. Zen Dennis (ZenDen?) was kind enough to post his contact number in his long message in the last thread. If you want to come and have questions, call him.

Zen Blade, I hope this is okay? And please, if you would, double check and make sure the plan as I have outlined it will actually work, and all these places will be open when they say they will, etc. If you can reserve that room for us at BAR, that would be great.

A few final comments. If you’re coming on the crawl, dress warmly and wear comfortable shoes. We may be walking, and there may be a lot of waiting in line.

It might be good if we had some way to recognize one another, since there will be lots of eager pizza eaters who aren’t part of the crawl. How, though? Ice & Fire t-shirts? No, too cold, the shirts will be hidden under jackets. Wear our baseball caps turned sideways?

Also, please, BRING CASH. We will have to pay for these pizzas, after all, and the pizzerias aren’t going to want to do separate checks for fifty, or handle twenty different people tossing in credit cards. Have some folding money so you can peel off your five bucks or ten bucks or whatever when the bill comes round.

And speaking of that bill… my experience with large groups is that things tend to go much better if everyone just pays an equal share. So if you’re one of these “oh, I didn’t have a coke, and I only had one slice, but he had two, so my share is two bucks less” people, be warned… that kind of stuff drives me buggy. My advice: order a coke and eat the second slice, and pay the same as everyone else. Nothing ruins a good evening more than spending an hour dividing up a check down to the last penny between fifty people.

Pepe’s! Modern! BAR! Who will be the best? Let’s see…

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