ONE PRICEY BITE

Barstool Sports Bro-in-Chief Dave Portnoy Saves Baltimore Pizza Shop From Closing

Dave Portnoy promised $60,000 to TinyBrickOven in Baltimore, which was facing a Christmas Day closure, to keep its doors open another year.

It may have been the most expensive pizza pie ever sold, but all for a good cause. Dave Portnoy, the president of Barstool Sports, saved a Baltimore pizza shop from closing down on Christmas Day by gifting its owner $60,000 to keep its doors open for a year. The polarizing media mogul stopped by TinyBrickOven in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Charm City to test out a slice as part of his wildly popular One Bite Pizza Reviews series. In the nearly 6-and-a-half-minute video, which is posted on Portnoy’s @stoolpresidente social accounts and his YouTube page, TinyBrickOven’s upbeat, enthusiastic owner tells Portnoy that, because the shop hasn’t been able to attain a liquor license, it hasn’t been making enough money and will close down.

After being impressed by the pizza—he scored it a 7.9—and the shop’s commitment to paying it forward by supporting veterans, Portnoy asks how much money it would take to keep doors open for another year: “If there’s somebody super rich right in front of your face who’s in the pizza business, and by serendipity he’s like, ‘What do you need to stay open for a year?’ you gotta give him some figure, because otherwise he’s gonna walk away.” They eventually land on $60,000, which Portnoy pledges to give before Christmas.