Slice Slice Baby - A Visit to the Museum of Pizza

This past weekend, I made my way to Williamsburg in Brooklyn for New York's newest pop-up museum, the Museum of Pizza aka #MoPi.  Since pizza is my absolute favorite food, I just had to check it out.  I got my tickets back in May and just waited until the glorious October day at the then "secret" location which was revealed to be the William Vale Hotel.  I wasn't sure how that would work or how big it would be but I hoped for the best and prepared for all the (hopefully) insta-worthy shots and yes I did buy a special shirt for the occasion because I wanted to be a little extra.

I ended up going to the museum with my mom because my bestie is sick (shout out to Pips if you actually read this).  Right now on the weekends the L train is not running so we made our way from Penn Station using the E train uptown to Court Sq-23rd St to transfer to the G train to Nassau Ave.  Not bad but hey New York lets finish the L already.  After that, the museum is a short walk at 55 Wythe Avenue.  Once you get into the building there's a little waiting area with pizza boxes on the wall from around the globe.  Pretty cool to see how creative places have gotten with their pizza box designs.  In the next room there is about a 4 minute presentation on the history of pizza, so there's your little education.  I was hoping though that there would be other little bits of pizza facts throughout the rest of the museum but there isn't so you have to take it all in during the beginning.

After the video clip you are allowed to enter the museum!  In the first room there are some pizza art pieces, nothing that you pose with though, except for one piece I guess, just to embrace which I appreciate.  The little art here was pretty cool, my favorite was the Mystic Pizza by Hein Koh.

The next room was where the insta-shots began!  It was a black-light area with sayings on the walls to pose with AND they wrote some sayings on pizza boxes to hold.  Pretty cute and I appreciate the Pizza Worker there for offering to take photos for groups, she was super nice and was the real MVP.

Once you're done with the black-light experience, make your way through the cheese cave!  "Mozzarella" drips from ceiling and creates an interactive experience to get you to next destination, the DiGiorno playground!  There's a crawl tube and a boomerang opportunity seesaw.  Get in line and the Pizza Worker will press the button for your seesaw GIF opportunity.  Once you're done, you can send the link to your email.  You can download your GIF or instantly upload to your Instagram.

Next up is Pizza Beach, more of a pop art beach based on pizza.  A bit different and nice that you don't need sunscreen.  Once you're done, make your way to the pizza makeup area.  Pose by a pizza compact and peek behind a pizza lipstick.  I loved the colors here and if you don't like makeup, the surrounding wall makes for a cool background. Fair warning, apparently you aren't allowed to sit in the compact even though everybody on Instagram is and there's no sign.

Making your way out of the makeup statues, if you go left you can head into Pizza Roll Heaven.  Step up onto the pepperoni stack and you will pop yourself into Pizza Roll Heaven, literally pizza rolls hanging out in the clouds but it is a little dark up there.  If you were to head to your right though, you will be entering the oven room which is basically a wonky mirror room with a pizza video running on one of the walls.  Next to that room, is another video experience with pepperoni beanbag chairs which I wasn't able to get into because it was too crowded.

Finally, when you are done with those little experiences, head towards the Hidden Valley Ranch area and get online for your pizza (which was included with your ticket)!  Not sure what your pizza limit is here but I opted for two slices but one at a time.  After that you are free to walk back around with your pizza, pose some more and that's pretty much it.  Geographer's note: pick up the little map in the napkin tray it has some offers and shows some of the local pizza places in the area.  

Personally, I enjoyed the experience as I had never been to a food experience museum before (extremely sad I never went to the Museum of Ice Cream) but I do wish there were just a few more things to give it a bigger wow-factor.  Overall no regrets!  Cool art, fun spot, AND the cheese pizza they gave was so good!!  Shout out to Williamsburg Pizza for that!  If you want to check out the museum they extended it until November 18th and I believe if you search on the @museumofpizza Instagram page you can still find a $5 off coupon.