Co Review: Still great pizzas at Co
You know what gets me about looking for a job? This might not be applicable for every industry, but in the programming world, it’s essentially like the high fashion modeling world, except instead of sexiness, it’s about raw brain power. It’s not about how much you can starve yourself or how many cleanses you do a month. It’s instead about how fast you can think of solutions on a white board and how elegant those solutions are. Just as genes dictate how one may or may not walk down the runway, your critical/quantitative/analytical mental development (up to this point in life) dictates how qualified you are. All this is to say… they’re basically grading you on how smart you are. Which is also to say that when startups and established tech giants turn me down, they’re just saying, “Not smart enough.” They’re probably also telling me that I watch too much TV. I think in the food world it’s probably the same way. If a restaurant is just that goddamn delicious, it’s going to survive. If you don’t make it, not delicious enough.
Some might argue it’s different depending on whether your restaurant is located in a centrally area versus 12th avenue, but that just means that location determines just how delicious your food needs to be in order to survive that location. Same things happen with companies and developers. Some can kill it at a startup or at a tech giant, while others strap on life preservers at companies not as technically demanding. Some restaurants can hang in Chelsea, while others might only be able to do in an outer borough.
How would one describe a pizza restaurant on 9th avenue and 24th street that’s still open after three years? Ah well, that just means that shit is damn good and able to survive not being in a central location. It probably does a good job of serving the locals in the neighborhood. Co is exactly the kind of pizza place I would love to have in my neighborhood.
Steph and I stopped by Co the other day for some pizza and they’re still churning out some of the best pies in the city. We didn’t try their awesome Popeye (spinach) pie, and opted instead for the Meatball pizza ($18), which had “tomato, mozzarella, veal meatballs, caramelized onions, olives, aged pecorino, oregano.” We were very satisfied. Co is still underrated probably, and it wasn’t difficult scoring a seat during brunch hours on a Saturday.
Recently Fast Company talked about how Jim Lahey, the owner of Co, “infected himself with intestinal worms to stave off a wheat sensitivity he attributes to working around flour dust.” This goes to show occupational hazards of being great at baking. Somehow it doesn’t seem like the type of worms he sold will ever end up on Amazon, where you can get a worm factory. But it still sounds interesting that parasites could actuallyl help us somehow.
While it’s troubling to hear what’s necessary to help alleviate Lahey’s allergies, I do take comfort that is something that isn’t mirrored in the programming world. I’m not sure how many people develop allergies from too many hash tables or writing spaghetti code. Carpal tunnel and bad eye sight might result instead, but there’s good and bad with every industry isn’t there?
Co230 9th Ave.New York, NY 10001212-243-1105
Posted by Danny on September 11, 2012 at 1:35 pm
After two months of being a parent, I can say that it doesn’t get any easier! The food blogging pretty much has stopped but it’s nice to take… [more]
0 comments
April 1, 2016 at 2:26 am 
I am a dad now! It’s only been about a month, and it’s as surreal to write that now was it was when my son first came into the world. Being… [more]
2 comments
February 29, 2016 at 2:27 am 
For the food loving couple that’s hobbled by the exclamation of, “I’m getting too old for this,” there’s some usefulness in food courts…. [more]
0 comments
January 10, 2016 at 1:12 am 
When the semester cycles to an end, my brain basically cannot fit everything all in, and that’s why the blog has really suffered. My plan for the… [more]
0 comments
December 31, 2015 at 8:39 pm 
The other day wifey and I woke up at 3 am and took the train into the city. Weather had not yet turned cold. It wasn’t the kind of wind that would… [more]
0 comments
November 30, 2015 at 9:54 pm