Pizza Thread
- Thread starter Fippy
- Start date
Bloody hell give those mushrooms some advance prep lolToday unconventional pizza is heart
I am not really sure what you mean. Do you think they could be a bit more cut up? I thought I was quite delicate, but perhaps I was running out of patience after cutting up the heart..
I thought the picture was before baking.
How Trademark Ruined Colorado-Style Pizza
You’ve heard of New York style, Chicago deep dish, Detroit square pans. But Colorado-style pizza? Probably not. And there’s a perfectly ridiculous reason why this regional style never spread beyond a handful of restaurants in the Rocky Mountains: one guy trademarked it and scared everyone else away from making it.
This story comes via a fascinating Sporkful podcast episode where reporter Paul Karolyi spent years investigating why Colorado-style pizza remains trapped in obscurity while other regional styles became national phenomena.
The whole episode is worth listening to for the detective work alone, but the trademark angle reveals something important about how intellectual property thinking can strangle cultural movements in their cradle.
Here’s the thing about pizza “styles”: they become styles precisely because they spread. New York, Chicago, Detroit, New Haven—these aren’t just individual restaurant concepts, they’re cultural phenomena adopted and adapted by hundreds of restaurants. That widespread adoption creates the network effects that make a “style” valuable: customers seek it out, restaurants compete to perfect it, food writers chronicle its evolution.
Colorado-style pizza never got that chance. When Karolyi dug into why, he discovered that Beau Jo’s—the restaurant credited with inventing the style—had locked it up legally. When he asked the owner’s daughter if other restaurants were making Colorado-style pizza, her response was telling:
When Karolyi finally tracked down the actual owner, Chip (after years of trying, which is its own fascinating subplot), he expected to hear about some grand strategic vision behind the trademark. Instead, he got a masterclass in reflexive IP hoarding:
That’s it. No business plan. No licensing strategy. Just “some lawyer said we can do it” so they did. This is the IP-industrial complex in microcosm: lawyers selling trademark applications because they can, not because they should.
A few weeks later, Karolyi followed up with Chip. Predictably, the business advisors had circled the wagons. They “unanimously” told him not to give up the trademark—because of course they did. These are the same people who profit from maintaining artificial scarcity, even when it demonstrably hurts the very thing they’re supposedly protecting.
And so Colorado-style pizza remains trapped in its legal cage, known only to a handful of tourists who stumble across Beau Jo’s locations. A culinary innovation that could have sparked a movement instead became a cautionary tale about how IP maximalism kills the things it claims to protect.
You’ve heard of New York style, Chicago deep dish, Detroit square pans. But Colorado-style pizza? Probably not. And there’s a perfectly ridiculous reason why this regional style never spread beyond a handful of restaurants in the Rocky Mountains: one guy trademarked it and scared everyone else away from making it.
This story comes via a fascinating Sporkful podcast episode where reporter Paul Karolyi spent years investigating why Colorado-style pizza remains trapped in obscurity while other regional styles became national phenomena.
The whole episode is worth listening to for the detective work alone, but the trademark angle reveals something important about how intellectual property thinking can strangle cultural movements in their cradle.
Here’s the thing about pizza “styles”: they become styles precisely because they spread. New York, Chicago, Detroit, New Haven—these aren’t just individual restaurant concepts, they’re cultural phenomena adopted and adapted by hundreds of restaurants. That widespread adoption creates the network effects that make a “style” valuable: customers seek it out, restaurants compete to perfect it, food writers chronicle its evolution.
Colorado-style pizza never got that chance. When Karolyi dug into why, he discovered that Beau Jo’s—the restaurant credited with inventing the style—had locked it up legally. When he asked the owner’s daughter if other restaurants were making Colorado-style pizza, her response was telling:
When Karolyi finally tracked down the actual owner, Chip (after years of trying, which is its own fascinating subplot), he expected to hear about some grand strategic vision behind the trademark. Instead, he got a masterclass in reflexive IP hoarding:
That’s it. No business plan. No licensing strategy. Just “some lawyer said we can do it” so they did. This is the IP-industrial complex in microcosm: lawyers selling trademark applications because they can, not because they should.
A few weeks later, Karolyi followed up with Chip. Predictably, the business advisors had circled the wagons. They “unanimously” told him not to give up the trademark—because of course they did. These are the same people who profit from maintaining artificial scarcity, even when it demonstrably hurts the very thing they’re supposedly protecting.
And so Colorado-style pizza remains trapped in its legal cage, known only to a handful of tourists who stumble across Beau Jo’s locations. A culinary innovation that could have sparked a movement instead became a cautionary tale about how IP maximalism kills the things it claims to protect.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 27,768
The crust is really well done. The idea of being served with honey is another thing altogether.Gotta love how the pictured pizza rised
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 27,768
Yup..really like the look of that za...crust is my favorite part of a pizzaGotta love how the pictured pizza rised
danjuno
Railroaded
Just realized I hadn't posted this!
Ordnael
I'll be the roundabout
That's a quiche where I live!
Plains-Cow
Best Resource; Always Wins
Anyone have any good munchy boxes to talk about?
I've yet to find my favourite assortment of treasures.
I've yet to find my favourite assortment of treasures.
Gori the Grey
The Poster
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2009
- Messages
- 14,294
I don't know about a munch box, but years ago, I would get with my take-out pizza an appetizer called "Heart Attack on a Platter": onion rings, french fries, mozzarella sticks, I forget what else. All deep fried foods.
When I stop posting here long enough for it to be clear that I've passed away (I won't stop posting until I die, so my not posting can be taken as a sign of my death), you can think to yourself, "Gori could have been with us for a little longer if he hadn't indulged in that 'Heart Attack on a Platter.'" You can go on to say, "I mean, duh, it was right there in the name."
Oh, and someone should trademark "Rocky Mountain Pizza," and then allow free use of the term.
When I stop posting here long enough for it to be clear that I've passed away (I won't stop posting until I die, so my not posting can be taken as a sign of my death), you can think to yourself, "Gori could have been with us for a little longer if he hadn't indulged in that 'Heart Attack on a Platter.'" You can go on to say, "I mean, duh, it was right there in the name."
Oh, and someone should trademark "Rocky Mountain Pizza," and then allow free use of the term.
