This Rexburg restaurant is one of the best places for New York pizza, says New York Times
Published at
Vincent Medina, Idaho Statesman & Rett Nelson, EastIdahoNews.com
REXBURG (Idaho Statesman) – Idaho is known for its incredible cuisine, but the New York Times says that the Gem State is also home to one of the best places to get a New York-style slice of pizza in the country.
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Righteous Slice in Rexburg was named on The New York Times’ list of best places to find a great New York pizza slice in 2025. The list was curated by Ed Levine, the founder of Serious Eats and the host of the podcast “Special Sauce.” His memoir is titled Serious Eater: One Man’s Perilous Quest for Pizza and Redemption.
His New York Times byline notes that Levine has eaten “thousands of slices of pizza in 25 states.”
Righteous Slice has earned 4.1 stars out of 5, out of 152 reviews on Yelp.
“With a proper char on the bottom, the slices stand up to a fold,” notes Levine in the article. “They are topped with low-moisture whole mozzarella and Grana Padano; the sauce carries the perfect faint sweetness of high-quality canned and steamed tomatoes, and is ringed by a beautiful three-inch-high cornicione, or raised lip, that has numerous charred air bubbles.”
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Levine describes the restaurant owner, Bill Crawford, who grew up in eastern Oregon, in a double-wide trailer. After serving as an Air Force pilot flying combat missions in Iraq, he earned a master’s degree from Harvard Business School. He began making Neapolitan-style pizzas eight years ago, in a mobile wood-burning oven towed to farmer’s markets in Rexburg, according to the New York Times article.
“Our New York-style pizza has been the main driver of our growth since we introduced it about three years ago,” said Crawford to the New York Times. “We are now pretty much maxed out on our capacity, but demand keeps growing.”
The restaurant is at 175 West 2nd Street South, just down the road from the Brigham Young University-Idaho. It is about a 4.5-hour drive from Boise.
Their menu highlights signature dishes and specialties such as their New York Bee Sting with spicy salami, pepperoni, and award-winning tomato sauce with a house blend of cheeses, finished with honey and dollops of ricotta. Their New York cheese pizza is made with hand-stretched dough, sweet tomato sauce and their house blend of cheeses. The dish won second place in the Northwest Region, International Pizza Challenge 2022.
Cheryl Crawford is the co-owner of Righteous Slice. She and Bill first met on a blind date in college and have been married for nearly 30 years.
They both attended Tony Gemignani’s International School of Pizza, with Cheryl taking the American-style course and Bill taking the Italian-style course.
Last year, the couple competed head-to-head in the 2024 Caputo Cup in Naples, Italy. Cheryl came in 6th place, ahead of her husband.
“We’re obsessed with quality,” said Cheryl in an interview over the phone with the Statesman. “We actually have three core values: quality first, excellence in all we do, and genuine hospitality. So we want to create that every time. We’re constantly trying to improve, just obsessive about making sure that everything is as good as it can be all the time.”