The Pennsylvania Pizza Shop That Serves Its Slices With Heaps Of Cold Cheese

Look, we all have our quirks when it comes to the foods we prefer. Maybe you're someone who craves a hot peanut butter and jelly quesadilla, or maybe your go-to Subway order is tuna fish, olives, and American cheese. Here at Food Republic, we support these choices and believe there's no such thing as a bad food idea — only ones that haven't yet found their target audience. One unusual idea that does, in fact, appear to have found its target audience comes from a pizza shop called Beto's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The idea: what if the cheese on pizza were served as a cold topping?

Beto's serves slices with hot crust and sauce, upon which cold, shredded mozzarella cheese is piled, along with whatever other toppings you want — banana peppers, olives, and tomato slices are popular choices. Beto's offers two ordering options: by the cut, which costs $1.92 plus tax per slice (with an additional $0.60 per topping), or by the tray — a 28-cut rectangular pie that costs $57.00 plain or $75.00 with a topping. The website also notes that two slices is generally enough to satisfy one person.

The restaurant, which is open seven days a week and displays the motto "Pizza Like No Other" on its website, has been slingin' its unique brand of sloppy slices since 1953 — so clearly, it's doing something right. And it's worth noting that the cheese does, in fact, begin to melt the longer it sits on the hot slice.

It's also important to mention that cold cheese on pizza is not an entirely novel creation by the good folks at Beto's, nor is it a city-specific quirk like Philadelphia's unusual choice of fish cakes as a hot dog topping. It's actually an established style of pizza. That's right—while Detroit has its thick, square slices and Naples has its deliciously soupy wood-fired pies, there's a lesser-known style that spans states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and more: Ohio Valley pizza, known for its cold cheese.

Allegedly, Ohio Valley pizza began in early 20th-century Appalachian Ohio. One theory as to why it developed this way involves the thick baking pans used at the time, which could have caused the cheese to burn if prepared in what might be considered the "traditional" way. Interestingly, though, Ohio Valley slices — including Beto's — do include a small amount of cheese during the cooking process, added along with extra sauce after the dough rises in the oven. But don't worry: Even with that iota of melted cheese, Beto's doesn't consider the cold cheese an extra topping — it's included in the base price.

This isn't the only iconoclastic Pennsylvania pizza style, either. Altoona-style pizza, from the eponymous small city due east of Pittsburgh, is also sliced square, with toppings added beneath the cheese. But it's the cheese that really steals the show: what makes Altoona pizza iconically controversial is its use of American cheese instead of mozzarella.