# pizzeria



## Emma Neve

Looked it up in the dictionary but the only thing I could find was: 

"pizza shop"

Isn't a "pizza shop" just a take-away? 
We have generic terms for "pizza shops" (pizza al trancio / pizza da asporto etc.) but they have nothing to do with "pizzeria" which is  basically a restaurant where 9 out of 10 customers would probably order pizza.
Is there a term to refer to a restaurant where the specialty is pizza?
What about "pizza restaurant". Could it be as simple as that?

Thank you

Emma


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## neuromatico

All over the world it's "Pizzeria"! 

Outside Italy, the term usually implies take-out or delivery, but it could also refer to a restaurant that serves pizza.


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## Emma Neve

Am I a woman of the world?
Apparently not!!! 

Thank you so much neuro!

Emma


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## neuromatico

Emma Neve said:


> ...nothing to do with "pizzeria"*,* which is  basically a restaurant...


Hi Emma,

Your English is great, and you probably already know this, but "which" should be preceded by a comma, whereas a comma should not appear before "that".

BE: outside the quotation mark, as above
AE: inside...

neuro


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## Emma Neve

Thank you very much for your correction neuromatico, I do appreciate!
As for my English being great (are you sure?!?! ) I think that in my case a fitting definition would be that _learning English is a lifelong adventure_! But this forum does help me a lot!

Thanks again


Emma


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## brian

We don't really have very many places whose specialty is pizza, at least not as they exist in Italy. A "pizzeria" can refer to a really small take-away place as well as a standard Italian restaurant that happens to have pizza, but I don't think many people would really use "pizzeria" anyway. The reason is that, at least in my experience in the US, most non-fastfood (i.e., not Pizza Hut or Little Caesar's) pizza places are simply Italian restaurants that happen to have pizza as well, but you can also get pasta, lasagna, calzones, etc. Therefore, we usually just say "Italian restaurant." 

If I were telling someone that I was going to have pizza someplace, I'd probably just say "I'm/We're going to get pizza at X" or "We're going out for pizza" or "We're going to this nice Italian place with good pizza." I think at the most I might say "*pizza place*," and if it's a real hole-in-the-wall place, I might call it a "*pizza joint*."


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## Emma Neve

That's exactly what I had in mind Brian! But maybe I should have phrased my post in another way. As a matter of fact, I thought "pizzeria" was a term English speaking people tend not to use... With your post you seem to confirm my opinion.
What a nice expression "hole-in-the-wall-place"... , makes me laugh!

Thank you

Emma


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## neuromatico

There are obviously regional differences! I haven't seen or heard "Pizza Palace" used outside of movies predating the '60s. 

I agree that the default is "Italian restaurant", but Emma the fact is that real Italian food cannot be had outside Italy!

p.s. 
I have to disagree with Brain regarding the use of "Pizzeria", although I might be somewhat infuenced by Toronto being an "Italian" city.


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## brian

Did you really mean to type "Pizza P*a*lace" or is that a typo? I said "*pizza place*" above.


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## neuromatico

Actually, I misread your post. My bad! 
I take back what I said _and _I am in agreement with "pizza place".


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## Emma Neve

Brian, ok you wouldn't use "pizzeria" normally. Still. You come to Italy and go to a pizzeria. You then go back to the US and tell a friend about this place. Would you then use "pizzeria"?

And can you call this "pushing the pizzeria thread"? 

Emma


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## brian

Haha..ok ok. When I'm telling friends stories about when I would go to pizzerias in Italy, I certainly use the word "pizzeria." But I think that's different. I would say the same thing about a "beer garden / Biergarten" in Germany, but I would never call a beer pub the US (even one with an outside seating area) a "beer garden," _unless_ it were a very very traditional, German-style beer garden that specifically advertised itself as such. Same for pizzeria. If the place were a very traditional Italian-style pizzeria that advertised itself as such (ad es, "Pizzeria Napoletana Tradizionale" or something), then I probably would call it a "pizzeria." But in that case, the person would infer that it's not any old "pizza place" that I'm talking about--it's a real "pizzeria."


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## neuromatico

Boy, are we pushing this thread!

IMHO, "Pizzeria" is used much more pervasively than Brian suggests.

What we really need is a poll, especially an international one!


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## Emma Neve

And you did clear all my doubts! I really thank you Brian!

Emma


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## brian

neuromatico,

You're probably right--my English is very regional (so it goes with the American South) . Perhaps it might be better to let this thread sit and see if anyone else cares to give an opinion.


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## raffavita

Ehm, sorry for complicating things, but... what is a "pizza parlour", then??
Thank you in advance.
Buona Epifania!!!


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## Emma Neve

A poll?  Not a bad idea neuro! 
Anyway, I owe you guys a pizza!

Emma

PS Raffa, ma quando viene a Roma l'Epifania? eheheheh


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## neuromatico

raffavita said:


> Ehm, sorry for complicating things, but... what is a "pizza parlour", then??
> Thank you in advance.
> Buona Epifania!!!


It's an American expression for (I hesitate to say) pizzeria, which dates back to the middle of the last century and has since fallen out of use.
(although Brian may take issue with this......)

Buona Epifania a te, Raffa!


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## raffavita

E' che sono io la Befana, e mi sto preparando per uscire e consegnare i regali.
Ecco perché li faccio in anticipo.

Grazie mille Neuromatico!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## courtney w

Hmm...I tend to agree with neuro on this one. Perhaps it is because I live so close to Toronto myself that we have the same opinion! At any rate, I'm sure I've heard pizzeria used before, albeit to describe places that serve unarguably authentic Italian food. SO...
Places where pizza is served but that are not necessarily Italian are just _restaurants._
Places where pizza is the main item on the menu and are definitely Italian restaurants do commonly get called _pizzerias._
Phew. That is confusing. Now that I read my own post, I'm not sure who I actually agree with! Maybe I'm half and half... 

Emma: In response to your specific question, if you said "pizzeria" to an English speaker, they would definitely know what you were talking about! It is a word that does get used in the English language. And if you came to Canada or the US and wanted to go to a pizzeria, you could surely look one up, and we would have them! (although they might not be as good as ones in Italy) 
Hope this doesn't muddle things more!


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## anghiarese

Pizzeria is common enough in AE that I think it will always be easily understood.


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## brian

Of course it will be easily _understood_, but so would many things.  We're more trying to discover how common of a word it really is to refer to a place specializing in pizza.


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## anghiarese

I think it's perhaps slightly less common than it once was.  "Pizza place" would probably be more likely to be used today but I'm sure "pizzeria" would still be right up near the top of the list of common names for restaurants specializing in pizza.  I would probably use either "pizza place" or "pizzeria" myself.  I can't think of anything else that doesn't either sound odd to me or miss the mark as far as its meaning.


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## You little ripper!

There are 505,000 listings for _*Italian pizzeria*_ (all English because of the *Italian*)
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=+%22Italian+pizzeria%22+&btnG=Search&meta so it must be reasonably common.

In Australia we use _*pizzeria, pizza joint, pizza place*_ and all the others that were suggested. I think the term _*pizzeria*_ is used more by Italians, the children of Italians and the Aussie friends and acquaintances of these (the latter two groups hear it all the time from the former two).


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## You little ripper!

The link I provided in my previous post is probably not a good indication of the use of the word _*pizzeria*_ because they are restaurant names but this one is:
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22+go+to+a+pizzeria%22+&meta=

There are over 18,000 listings for _*go to a pizzeria.*_


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## neuromatico

Good strategy, Charles!

"a pizzerria" returned 200,000 hits on Google.com
Applying the filter, "search pages located in Italy" returned only 13,000 
US: 108,000
CAN: 3,700
UK: 8,300
AUS: 1,800

"pizza place" returned 1,100,000 unfiltered
Italy: 3,390 (all seemed to be in English)
US: 1,640,000 (which exceeds the total; must be an artifact of Google's secret algorithm)
CAN: 32,000
 UK: 19,000
AUS: 7,500

Using this rough methodology, "pizza place" (fuori Italia) is the winner.


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## TrentinaNE

Another common option is simply to say "Let's go for pizza" without using a noun that specifies the location.  

Elisabetta


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## neuromatico

This thread has taken on a life of its own!

Almeno, ci stiamo divertendo!

neuro


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## Juliabug

neuromatico said:


> It's an American expression for (I hesitate to say) pizzeria, which dates back to the middle of the last century and has since fallen out of use.


 
I can only speak for my region, which is the Mid-Atlantic/Philadelphia region, but "pizza parlor" is still a very common expression here.

Most often when discussing a pizzeria we'll call it by it's proper name, which is commonly in the format of "[name]'s Pizza" -- e.g. "Nick's Pizza", which will usually get shortened to simply "Nick's". So a conversation might go something like:

_"You want to go for a pizza?"_
_"Yeah, let's go to Nick's."_
_"No, I don't like Nick's. Stefano's is better."_​


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## steevie

Let me just push this thread for a slight different question. I am about to write a booklet with tourist information, in which I would like to discriminate between proper restaurant and pizzeria, making two distinct lists. So, here's my question: should I write "pizzeria" or "pizzerias" before the list (as tha list contains more than one pizzeria)? How is it used in English? Merriam Webster does not provide any plural form, so I wonder whether pizzeria has only the singular form.

To give my contribution to the original question (and if there's someone still interested ), in my experience I would say that "pizzeria" has a kind of opposite meaning in Italian and English: in Italy, it is a place where they make pizzas and happen to offer restaurant dishes, too, whereas in England/USA and abroad, it is a restaurant that happens to serve also pizzas.

Thanks in advance for any answer!
Stefano


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## You little ripper!

steevie said:


> Let me just push this thread for a slight different question. I am about to write a booklet with tourist information, in which I would like to discriminate between proper restaurant and pizzeria, making two distinct lists. So, here's my question: should I write "pizzeria" or "pizzerias" before the list (as tha list contains more than one pizzeria)? How is it used in English? Merriam Webster does not provide any plural form, so I wonder whether pizzeria has only the singular form.
> 
> To give my contribution to the original question (and if there's someone still interested ), in my experience I would say that "pizzeria" has a kind of opposite meaning in Italian and English: in Italy, it is a place where they make pizzas and happen to offer restaurant dishes, too, whereas in England/USA and abroad, it is a restaurant that happens to serve also pizzas.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any answer!
> Stefano


Pizzerias is the plural of *pizzeria*.

In Australia a 'pizzeria' is a place where they make pizzas but also have other dishes on the menu.


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