Dave Portnoy added a kosher pizzeria to his One Bite rotation today, stopping into Zevy’s Pizza in Fair Lawn for a slice and walking away with a score of 7.5. Portnoy called the pie a very traditional New York slice, putting Zevy’s in rare company as one of the few kosher pizzerias to get the El Presidente treatment.
What Portnoy Had to Say
Zevy’s has built a loyal following along River Road in Fair Lawn for years, and today a much bigger audience got introduced to it. Portnoy’s “very traditional New York slice” comment lines up with what regulars already know: Zevy’s leans into a classic cheese pie rather than chasing trends, even with a menu that also includes a fried onion pie and a vodka pie for customers who want something different. A 7.5 lands solidly in the middle of Portnoy’s scale, the kind of score that signals a legitimately good slice without claiming it’s reinventing pizza.
Why This Matters for Kosher Pizza
One Bite reviews don’t come around for kosher spots often. Most of Portnoy’s thousands of reviews skip kosher pizzerias entirely, since they make up a small slice of the overall pizza map he covers. A mainstream score like this gives Zevy’s exposure well beyond Fair Lawn’s Orthodox community, and it’s a reminder that kosher pizza can hold its own against the non-kosher competition Portnoy reviews on a near-daily basis.
Fair Lawn has built a real kosher dining scene over the past several years, anchored by spots along River Road and Fair Lawn Avenue. Zevy’s has been one of the steadier names in that mix, known locally for the Drunken Grandma pie and a thick, buttery crust that draws comparisons to old-school New York slices, the same comparison Portnoy landed on today.
Portnoy’s Track Record with Kosher Pizza
Zevy’s joins a short list. Portnoy has done thousands of One Bite reviews, and only a handful have been at kosher spots. We broke down his early kosher pizza scores back in 2019, and the results were better than most kosher pizza skeptics would expect. Saba’s Pizza on Ave J in Brooklyn, a longtime favorite among Yeshiva of Flatbush students, scored an 8.2. Bravo’s Pizza came in even higher at 8.3. Mezze Queens, where Portnoy got his first taste of the kosher pizza-and-sushi combo, landed a 6.8. Cafe Viva on the Upper West Side was the outlier, scoring just 1.8 in a review that didn’t go well for the restaurant.
More recently, Portnoy gave Fialkoff’s Kosher Pizza in Surfside, Florida a 7.5, the same score Zevy’s pulled in today. Worth noting that the upside-down Sicilian square pizza score floating around online traces back to Portnoy’s early 2020 review of Brooklyn Square Pizza in Jackson, which is not kosher, but a related concept, Kosher Square Pizza, opened in Oakhurst this June using a similar recipe under its own kosher certification, but Portnoy has not yet reviewed that kosher location directly. Stack the actual kosher reviews together and they’ve generally held their own against Portnoy’s much larger pool of non-kosher reviews, with Zevy’s 7.5 landing right in the middle of that range.
Zevy’s Pizza Info
Zevy’s Pizza is located at 10-16 River Rd, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410. Phone: (201) 300-6113. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thursday 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Friday 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Saturday 6:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., and Sunday 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Zevy’s is under the hashgacha of the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County (RCBC).
Looking for more kosher pizza spots near you? Download the KosherNearMe app at YeahThatsKosher.com/app to find kosher restaurants wherever you are.
