Pizza slice
Credit: Nick D'Emilio

The 14th Street NW corridor that stretches from Thomas Circle to Florida Avenue NW has hosted many pizza parties in recent years. Etto, Manny & Olga’s, Lupo Pizzeria, Red Light, and Pizza Policy already call the strip home. Most of these pizzerias only sell whole pies. That can be a lot to commit to in a town where diners like to weigh their options.

Enter Slice & Pie, which should open in early October serving a dozen pizzas by the slice and whole pies for carryout and delivery. While they won’t keep with D.C.’s jumbo slice tradition, the New York-style slices should be sturdy enough to fold and eat on your way home.

Find Slice & Pie in the former Pizzeria Vetri space at the corner of 14th Street NW and Florida Avenue NW. The restaurant comes from Peter Bayne and Geoff Dawson of Tin Shop, the hospitality group behind Franklin Hall, located on the same block, Church Hall in Georgetown, TallBoy in Shaw, Penn Social in Penn Quarter, and Highline RxR in Crystal City. (Penn Social should reopen for football season, according to Bayne.)

Tin Shop’s latest venture has two parts. Slice & Pie is the to-go business, and the dine-in business, with room for about 60 people, is called Lucy. The menus are nearly identical, but Lucy has a separate entrance on Florida Avenue NW. Bayne is keeping them distinct so those waiting in line for takeout slices don’t overwhelm diners enjoying meals. The dine-in space will have roll-up windows for an open-air feel and some patio seating. 

Customers will be able to purchase to-go drinks from Slice & Pie or pair pizza with cocktails and natural wines from longtime D.C. bartender Eddie Kim when they sit down for a meal at Lucy. In addition to pizza, there may be a few snacks and salumi. Bayne says he’s bringing in a dessert purveyor who will sell sweet treats, also by the slice. The hours are still being determined, but Bayne says they will serve lunch.

“We wanted to do something that was an ode to our mothers and grandmothers—women in our lives who helped get us to where we are,” Bayne says of the naming process. “That’s how we came up with the name Lucy.” Look for their photos on the walls of the dining room.

No one’s mother or grandmother is actually named Lucy, however. Men anointing their restaurants’ with women’s names was a 2019 trend. Many of the names the team wanted to use were already taken. The others weren’t as short as Lucy.

Bayne and Dawson brought new partners into the project—businessman Todd Galaida and master pizzaiolo Giulio Adriani. Adriani, a towering Italian trained in Naples, is a pizza sensei of sorts and has made a name for himself evangelizing Neapolitan-style pizza in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He’ll try anything when it comes to pizza, including flash frying dough, as he does at his New York pizzeria Forcella. He’s based in New York, but has been eyeing opportunities in the District.

While Adriani has all the certifications anointing him a Neapolitan master, he also has plenty of experience with creating the airy dough for New York-style pizza. He worked with Cake BossBuddy Valastro on his first Las Vegas pizzeria, PizzaCake

The Slice & Pie partnership came together organically. Bayne, who was looking to serve Neapolitan-style pizza at his forthcoming Ballston business, Quincy Beer Hall, signed up for Pizza University at Marra Forni, a brick oven manufacturer based in Beltsville. The company offers a three-day intensive training for people who are about to make pizza a predominant part of their lives.

Adriani taught Bayne’s course and after some tough love, the two hit it off. When Bayne asked him to consult on the Neapolitan-style pizzas at Quincy, Adriani steered him to New York-style instead. That’s what’s trending, he argued. 

Ballston was meant to be the extent of the pair teaming up, but then Bayne kept peering at the vacated Pizzeria Vetri space en route to Franklin Hall. “This is the best corner right now to put in a high-end New York slice shop,” he remembers thinking repeatedly. It made sense to bring Adriani on board. And they don’t plan to stop there. “We want to turn this into something that we can grow and get a few of them around the city,” Bayne says.

Slice & Pie and Lucy, 2221 14th St. NW; 202-465-4822; sliceandpie.com