National Tavern-Style Pizza Day 2026

History & origins

National Tavern-Style Pizza Day falls on October 22. It is an informal U.S. food observance, not a federal holiday.

The calendar date is new and has a named founder. In 2024, National Day Calendar and Chicago’s Home Run Inn proclaimed October 22 as National Tavern-Style Pizza Day, with a city proclamation from Mayor Brandon Johnson. Home Run Inn’s story is specific: Mary and Vincent Grittani opened a tavern on Chicago’s South Side (Little Village / South Lawndale) in 1923. After Vincent’s death and World War II, Mary and her son-in-law Nick Perrino began serving pizza from a Bari family recipe, cut into small squares and — in the company’s telling — first offered free on napkins so customers could eat a slice while standing. The tavern took the Home Run Inn name in 1947 after a baseball came through the window. The family still runs the restaurants and a frozen-pizza brand.

Home Run Inn is a well-known early source of the style. It is not the only Chicago or Midwest tavern with a claim. Other South Side shops and Milwaukee “thin crust” taverns served square-cut thin pizza in the same era. Treat the 2024 day as a Home Run Inn / National Day Calendar creation, and treat tavern-style pizza as a wider Midwestern bar food.

The pie itself: a thin, often cracker-crisp crust, toppings pushed close to the edge, and a grid of squares (the “party cut”) so it can be eaten standing. That is the opposite of deep-dish. Do not 301 this page into a generic pizza URL.

Why it matters

Outside Chicago, “Chicago pizza” still means deep-dish. Tavern-style is what many Chicago neighborhoods actually eat on a weeknight. The day is useful if it teaches that difference. It is a food date; you can eat the pie without treating it as a night out.

How to celebrate

Order a thin, square-cut pie from a tavern-style shop, in Chicago if you can, or from a Midwest place that uses the cut. Make one at home on a thin crust and cut it in a grid, not triangles. Compare it with deep-dish on purpose so the contrast is clear. Keep the focus on the thin crust and square cut, not on a specific topping.

Facts

• Home Run Inn and National Day Calendar founded the October 22 food day in 2024
• Mary and Vincent Grittani opened the original South Side tavern in 1923
• The company dates its tavern pizza to the 1940s, cut in small squares
• Tavern-style means thin, crisp crust and a square “party cut,” not deep-dish
• Other Chicago and Milwaukee taverns also served this style; Home Run Inn is not the only origin story

Upcoming dates

• Thursday, October 22, 2026
• Friday, October 22, 2027
• Sunday, October 22, 2028
• Monday, October 22, 2029
• Tuesday, October 22, 2030