To some, the Triple Threat at Joe’s Rotisseria in Roselle Park, New Jersey, is pure pizza heresy. “A lot of old timers don’t like change,” says Chef-Owner Joe Brignoni. “They don’t want to see new innovations in pizza.” On the other hand, throngs of people actually do, as pictures of pizza are extraordinarily tempting to social media users. Take the Triple Threat: a bronzed calzone bordered by garlic knots that rise over a crescent of cheesy pepperoni pizza. Last May, a 110-second Thrillist video featuring sensuous close-ups of the “pie” racked up 4.8 million views on Facebook in a month. And now hundreds of people visit the restaurant’s Instagram account, “liking” and commenting on photos of other unorthodox pizzas, like buffalo chicken pinwheels and Oreo-cheesecake pizza on a Sicilian crust. “My goal was to post every single day something I wanted to eat,” says Brignoni. “I knew one day one pie would eventually go viral because all these pies are so different.” Brignoni belongs to a new class of pizza makers who are disrupting the pizza paradigm by leveraging social media, culinary creativity and technology to redefine what constitutes pizza. For them, pizza is a canvas capable of accommodating any of-the-moment trends, cuisines or dietary restrictions their guests demand.
