For roughly fifteen years, the dollar slice was the great equalizer of New York City. At 2 Bros, Percy's, or 99 Cent Fresh, a Wall Street analyst and a broke NYU student stood shoulder-to-shoulder under fluorescent lights, eating the exact same meal for a single Washington.
Today, the $1 slice is virtually extinct. If you look closely at the awnings of the remaining dollar slice joints across Manhattan, you will see a piece of red duct tape crudely applied over the "1", replaced by a sharpied "$1.50" or "$2.00".
The Margins Were Always A Mirage
The dollar slice was never a highly profitable item. It was a volume play. Pizzerias relied on churning out thousands of slices a day to cover their fixed costs (rent, labor, utilities), making pennies of profit per slice.
The Breakdown of a $1.00 Slice (2018 Data)
- Cheese: $0.35
- Dough/Flour: $0.10
- Sauce: $0.08
- Labor: $0.20
- Rent/Utilities/Box: $0.22
- Profit: $0.05
The Cheese Crisis
In 2021, the commodity price of wholesale low-moisture mozzarella spiked. Because cheese makes up nearly 40% of the cost of goods sold (COGS) for a slice, this single ingredient spike wiped out the entire 5-cent profit margin.
Coupled with commercial gas price hikes from ConEd and the mandated increase in the NYC minimum wage to $16/hour, the math simply stopped working. To maintain the same meager profit margin, the slice had to jump to $1.50—a massive 50% price increase.