Behind the Counter of Pinocchio’s Pizza

“Square pizza. Where do you get it? Any self-respecting Harvard alumnus would know the answer to that,” Louis Litt, a corporate attorney in the legal drama series “Suits,” claimed in the first season of the series.

Pinocchio’s Pizza, located in the heart of Harvard Square on Winthrop Street, is considered a Harvard tradition to many. Famous for its Sicilian-style square slices, Pinocchio’s is typically packed with students, either grabbing a quick bite in between classes or a late-night meal after partying.

Established in 1966, Pinocchio’s has lived through the Read Block redevelopment and gentrification that killed its 80-year-old neighbors: the Wursthaus in 1996 and the Tasty in 1997, both Harvard Square staples replaced by chain stores. The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected small businesses; Pinocchio’s responded by scaling back employees’ hours but kept most of its business thanks to its takeout model.

“Ever since COVID, things have gotten much, much more expensive, and unfortunately, we have to raise the prices a little,” owner Adam DiCenso explained in an interview with the “Harvard Independent.” “Every three to six months, we kind of sit down and look at the numbers and try to figure out, should we go up a little bit? Should we stay?”

DiCenso’s family purchased Pinocchio’s in 1983, only 17 years after its founding, while he was still in high school. He worked part time throughout high school and college, and in 1992 he joined full time.

The original owner, Luciano, opened the shop in 1966. “He actually opened another shop out in Western Massachusetts … so for several years, he was running both,” DiCenso recalled. “I guess at some point in the early 80s, he had decided he wanted to just focus on [the Western Massachusetts shop] and sell [the Cambridge] one. So that’s when my father and my uncle came in and bought this place from him.”

While the ownership changed, the recipe remained the same. “One company we buy our flour from, another company we buy the cheese from, and we have been using the same exact flour and the exact same cheese for all these years,” DiCenso said. “We make the dough and cut the cheese and mix up the sauce fresh every day.”

Despite the recent economic challenges and rising costs, DiCenso thinks some pizzerias focus too much on the bottom line, leading them to cut costs too aggressively. His aversion to this approach has allowed Pinocchio’s to maintain its quality and consistency. “Generally speaking, any given place can spend 30 or 40 cents more a pound on their cheese, and their quality can go from here to here,” DiCenso commented, making an upward sweeping gesture. “[With] pizza, you can mark them up quite a bit for what’s going into it … so you can get away with spending a little more money per pizza, and the level of quality goes much higher.”

The establishment itself is a small space, with a line often filling the room and extending outside. The walls are plastered with photos of Harvard athletic teams and celebrities who have passed through. “When we first [got] the place, we didn’t make any sort of major structural changes, but just brought in a little more brightness,” DiCenso clarified. “The biggest thing, around 1986, was when we put in the painting.” His family commissioned a local artist and frequent visitor of Pinocchio’s to paint a mural on two of the blank walls, featuring “Pinocchio” feeding pizza to a whale and a mermaid.

While best known for the Sicilian square slices, Pinocchio’s also sells subs and round pizzas. DiCenso explained their typical daily breakdown: “I would say it’s probably 75 to 80% pizza, 20 to 25% sub.” Of the pizzas, he estimates that 90% of slices sold are square, except for catering. Pinocchio’s has 15 to 20 different accounts from Harvard that place consistent catering orders. In those instances, the round pie is more popular. “When people are doing events with a lot of people, I think people are more used to having traditional pizza,” DiCenso explained.

Of course, catering has taken a new shape in the form of delivery apps, which roughly one-third of American adults now use. “We started using our first delivery app around maybe 2012 or 2013, and then it kind of slowly rose all those years,” DiCenso recalled. “But then, when 2020 COVID hit, it kind of took them to the next level, and it has kind of stayed there. We get a lot of orders.”

The Harvard Square pizza scene is also contested by Joe’s Pizza, OTTO, and Oggi Gourmet, with Joe’s Pizza being Pinocchio’s main competitor. Joe’s Pizza, a chain that originated in New York City in 1975, opened its Cambridge location in 2023 right across the street from the Harvard MBTA station. Joe’s location is advantageous because of its visibility and proximity to Harvard Yard, while Pinocchio’s is tucked away off JFK Street.

While the current Joe’s Pizza is a new rival in the Square, a 1974 article discussed an old Harvard Square pizza rival that coincidentally shared the name Joe’s Pizza. The old Joe’s was located on Linden Street and was known for its thin-crust slices, much like the current Joe’s Pizza, which thin-crust lovers favor. Across both generations, Pinocchio’s remained a favorite among those who prefer thick crust.

The “Harvard Independent” conducted a poll on Sidechat, a social media app that lets Harvard College students communicate anonymously, asking which Harvard Square pizza they preferred. Of 450 respondents, 51% preferred Pinocchio’s, 38% preferred Joe’s Pizza, and the remaining 11% selected OTTO, Oggi, or said that they do not eat pizza. While Joe’s has diminished the square slice’s dominance, Pinocchio’s remains the most popular.

“They opened up, and I was a little worried, but honestly, three, four months later, it just kind of went down and we’re just still going,” explained DiCenso. “My own theory is that the more places that are here, I think it’s better.”

As Harvard Square continues to evolve, Pinocchio’s remains a window into the past, with a focus on tradition and consistency. “I feel like we’ve kind of established the formula here. I think our product is honed in and it’s pretty tight,” explained DiCenso. “I don’t want to change a thing.”

Patrick Sliz ’27 (psliz@college.harvard.edu) owns a Pinocchio’s T-shirt. His go-to order is one slice of cheese with a drizzle of ranch and one slice of barbecue chicken.