This pizza shop is big in Brooklyn, and it’s expanding to Durham’s Brightleaf Square
A Brooklyn-born pizza brand is expanding into Durham, bringing with it Detroit-style pies and a famous burger.
Named for its rectangular pizzas and its founder Emily Hyland, Emmy Squared Pizza is planning to open a new restaurant in Durham’s Brightleaf Square. The brand currently has 12 locations from New York to Atlanta and is set to open two in Charlotte, plus the one in Durham.
Emmy Squared is the spin-off of Pizza Loves Emily, a wood-fired pizzeria Hyland opened in 2014 with ex-husband Matt Hyland. Two years later they opened Emmy Squared, specializing in trendy Detroit-style pizzas. The restaurant has been highlighted in Time Out New York as some of the best pizza in the city.
Emmy Squared will move into the former El Rodeo Mexican Restaurant space after the restaurant moved out in March after 32 years.
Hyland said the space will have room for about 70 people indoors, plus another 20 on the patio.
Emmy Squared will take control of the space in September, Hyland said, and hopes to be open by November.
Detroit-style pizza’s moment in the sun
Detroit-style is a bread-lover’s pizza, rectangular instead of round, the slices are thick and square. The slices themselves are kind of a whirlwind of textures, from the ooey-gooey of melted cheese, the toasted, fried cheese edges and the chewy, airy dough. Hyland said the edges are her favorite part and what makes Detroit-style stand out.
“The crust is the marriage of the cheese and dough and high heat of the oven,” Hyland told The News & Observer. “It’s like a fried cheese stick.”
There are more than a dozen red and white pizzas at Emmy Squared. Hyland said the signature is probably the “Colony Squared,” a red-sauce pizza with pepperoni, picked jalapenos and honey. Other favorites include the MVP, which includes red sauce, vodka sauce and pesto, and the Emmy, a white sauce pie made for ranch dressing lovers, with banana peppers, red onion, a ranch sauce and a side of ranch for dipping. Because ranch.
Emmy Squared may find a number of formidable Detroit-style pizzas in the Triangle when they get here, including versions from Oakwood Pizza Box, Trophy Brewing and Benchwarmers Bagels in Raleigh and the grandma pies from Hutchins Garage in Durham.
“Detroit-style is really having its moment in the sun,” Hyland said.
Emmy Squared expansion
As Emmy Squared brought on investors and looked to expand, Hyland said Detroit-style was easier to replicate than the whims and intense heat of wood-burning ovens at their other concept, Pizza Loves Emily, which has remained in New York.
The pizzas as Emmy Squared are cooked in a conveyor belt oven in about eight to 10 minutes, Hyland said, made from dough that takes 24 hours to mix and proof.
Since starting its expansion, Emmy Squared has been heading southward with new restaurants, adding locations in Nashville, Northern Virginia, Washington, DC, and Louisville. Pizza, Hyland said, is beloved pretty much the same in every city and town in America.
“Universal is the word,” Hyland said. “Pizza is part of the collective unconsciousness of America. It’s in all of our hearts; it’s in the culture.”
Burger boom
The Emmy Squared logo is a square slice of pizza holding a glass of wine, but Hyland said it wouldn’t be entirely true to call the restaurant a pizza joint. Instead she sees it as a neighborhood restaurant that happen to serve pizza.
“We’re an American restaurant, we’re not a pizza place,” Hyland said. “You could dine at Emmy Squared and not have any pizza.”
The Emmy burger might have something to do with that. Hyland said that her ex-husband grew tired of the pizza monotony and put a burger special on the menu. That burger developed a cult following in New York, with diners lining up before the restaurant opened and earning shout outs from outlets like Eater New York.
“The burger is really what did it,” Hyland said. “The craze for the burger is what changed our lives.”
The burger, dubbed Le Big Matt, is a double cheeseburger with special sauce, American cheese, pickles and lettuce on a pretzel bun.
The rest of the menu beyond pizza includes platters of waffle fries with toppings like pimento cheese and bacon, chicken “crunchers,” which Hyland called fancy chicken nuggets, garlic cheese sticks and a plate of eggplant parm with burrata.
Brightleaf Square changes
Emmy Squared found Brightleaf through Asana Partners, which owns the historic Brightleaf property and is also the developer of the brand’s Charlotte locations, Hyland said.
Brightleaf owners Asana are in the middle of a major renovation of the historic property, updating the facade, landscaping and courtyard.
The district was once the center of Durham’s nightlife scene, but Brightleaf Square and Peabody Place have seen a number of closings in the last few years, including longtime tenants Morgan Imports and Parker and Otis and restaurants like Peabody Pizza, Mount Fuji Japanese Restaurant and the popular Duke hangout Satisfaction.
In a press release, Asana Partners notes the companies moving into the development, including three biomedical firms and a new location of the popular scoop shop, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream.
Hyland has also made herself a North Carolinian, as she and her fiance moved out of Manhattan and made a home in Charlotte, inspired, she said, by the struggles of working in New York during the pandemic. Hyland said she likes the change of pace.
“My whole nervous system has calmed here,” she said. “The pace of things is more relaxed. Things seem possible.”
This story was originally published July 12, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
