Joe’s Pizza

Joe’s Pizza is a pizzeria in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, founded in 1975 by Joe Pozzuoli. It is one of the best-known slice shops in New York and is closely associated with old-school New York pizza. The original screen-famous storefront was at the corner of Bleecker Street and Carmine Street, before the business moved a few doors away to 7 Carmine Street.

Joe’s Pizza appears in Spider-Man 2 (2004), Seinfeld (1989–1998), Along Came Polly (2004), and Sex and the City. It is most famous on screen from Spider-Man 2, but in Seinfeld it is also used as Paisano’s Pizza.

In Spider-Man 2 (2004), Joe’s Pizza is used as Peter Parker’s workplace in the “Pizza Time” sequence. Peter works there as a delivery boy and is eventually fired after being late. In the scene, a stressed Peter fails to deliver eight deep-dish pizzas due to an infamous “29-minute delivery guarantee”, forcing his exasperated boss, Mr. Aziz, to fire him and declare, “You’re a nice guy, but you’re just not dependable”.

In Seinfeld (1989–1998), the storefront at 7 Carmine Street is used as the exterior of the fictional restaurant Paisano’s Pizza in the Season 7 episode “The Calzone” (1996). The episode revolves around George Costanza bringing an eggplant calzone to the office, where George Steinbrenner becomes so obsessed with it that George ends up running daily lunch errands to Paisano’s. Things go wrong when George is unfairly accused of stealing from the tip jar and is permanently banned from the restaurant. Kramer agrees to pick up a calzone for him, but while inside the shop he tries to dry his wet clothes in the pizza oven. When he then attempts to pay the cook with a pocketful of pennies, the angry counter guy throws him out as well, resulting in Kramer also being banned.

The location is commonly listed as Joe’s Pizza, which occupies 7 Carmine Street today. However, Joe’s Pizza was still associated with its original corner shop at Bleecker Street and Carmine Street when the episode aired, and that older location was later used in Spider-Man 2 (2004). A second Joe’s Pizza location is reported to have opened at 7 Carmine Street in 1996, but the exact timing is unclear. For this reason, the Seinfeld appearance is best described as the 7 Carmine Street storefront later associated with Joe’s Pizza, rather than the original Joe’s Pizza location.

---