The quest for the best beach pizza isn’t as easy as it looks – or tastes.
It’s a decades-spanning, multi-generational question that will garner a different response, and sometimes heated debate, depending on who is asked.
Which is the best pizza at the beach: Tripoli Pizza or Cristy’s Pizza?
The next generation of pizza lovers in a family was trying to settle a generational debate at Salisbury Beach for which stand makes the best “beach pizza” around.
It’s not an easy answer, as taste preferences and memories often factor in where a “box of eight,” a slice with extra cheese or pepperoni or just plain is ordered when visiting Salisbury Beach, Hampton Beach and Seabrook, New Hampshire.
In fact, it’s something that has households divided through generations from grandfathers who prefer sweet sauce to a daughter’s preference of a crispier crust as the deciding factors to head to the pizza shop over and over again.
North of Boston Media Group has set out to find our readers’ favorite beach pizza. Cast a vote for your choice on eagletribune.com. Voting ends Tuesday.
Two favorites that have stood the test of time and created memories for families are Tripoli Pizza and Cristy’s Pizza. Both have been fixtures at Salisbury Beach for eight decades and separated by one business between them on Broadway in the heart of the beach.
Their close proximity has led to friendly competition between the two and their loyal followers. It’s also sparked people to carry boxes of each to the competitors window to compare bites. But one shop considers itself the original “beach pizza” while the other is “pizza at the beach.”
In Hampton Beach, Cristy’s is a standalone on Ashworth Avenue, off the beaten path while beachgoers stop in Seabrook at Tripoli Pizza on their way to or home from the New Hampshire coast.
LT Poindexter, almost 2 years old, sat on a bench facing Cristy’s Pizza at the center of Salisbury Beach with his father Todd Poindexter by his side Thursday afternoon. LT was fixated on the shop’s window, waiting for his extra cheese pizza to be ready.
When their number was called, LT walked up to the window and tried reaching up for the hot box filled with slices, which his father grabbed.
His grandfather Steve McGuire, visiting from Florida, did the same at Tripoli Pizza before sitting down with his family at a picnic table.
Poindexter said he and his partner Haley McGuire have been on a mission to see if LT has a preference yet, at a young age, for either Cristy’s or Tripoli Pizza.
“We’ve been trying to figure out which he’s leaning toward,” Poindexter said.
It’s not always cut and dry to like the same place, and their family is no different.
Steven McGuire reminisced about heading to Salisbury Beach with his wife when they were younger. He’d walk right to Tripoli Pizza while his wife parted ways to Cristy’s. His daughter Haley Poindexter sided with her mom and has favored Cristy’s over the years, like Poindexter.
LT took bites out of both shops’ pizzas, seemingly enjoying the taste of the slices from both rival eats. But he could be heard with what may be that day’s winner for him – and what likely seems to carry on a family tradition three generations later of no clear house winner.
“Poli,” LT said, his way of saying Tripoli.
Don’t call it beach pizza at Tripoli Pizza though.
“It’s Tripoli Pizza at the beach,” fourth-generation Tripoli family member Matt Zappala said. He owns Tripoli Pizza with his brother Andrew Zappala.
Loyal Tripoli customers relish the icon’s signature thin crust, sweet tomato sauce and sprinkled cheese.
Matt and Andrew are the fourth generation of family-run Tripoli Pizza. For the two, quality, dedication and commitment are what put their pizza and pastries over the top. They said their dedicated staff is family and the love they have for what they are doing shows in the food.
Tripoli Pizza, which has been around for more than a century, began making pizza at its Lawrence location in 1944. The next year, the bakery branched out to Salisbury Beach in the summer as business was slower in the city with the hot weather. The bakery-style pizza blossomed at the beach and took on a life of its own, Matt Zappala said.
Tripoli Pizza is known for its sweet sauce and thin crust with a crunch. A standard of consistency and simple and quality ingredients have grown the allure of the pizza and its clientele, Matt Zappala said.
Andrew Zappala recalled his own childhood memories of summer drives up in the family station wagon to Salisbury Beach to grab some Tripoli’s. He said loyal customers who have moved away and come back to visit tell him stories of Tripoli’s place in their core memories.
He said customers say how their pizza at the beach brings back memories and has created traditions among families.
“It’s a treasure every day to do business and share traditions and have our customers do the same with us,” Andrew Zappala said. “People can go anywhere and still come to us. We don’t take that for granted.”
Since Tripoli and Cristy’s are neighbors, beachgoers have the option to go to either or both, and that’s OK with both businesses.
“We both have our loyal following and both work really hard,” Matt Zappala said.
Longtime Cristy’s employee Michael Orieques said he’s seen families like theirs do pizza challenges between the two shops on any given day of the week.
Cristy’s opened in Salisbury in 1946.
On Thursday, the Poindexter and McGuire family weren’t alone hitting both places on the same visit. Families sitting down for lunch and others pulling up their cars for a quick bite were seen with boxes from both.
Parents with their children come up to Cristy’s window to tell Orieques about how the pizza has been a part of their family’s tradition whenever they come to the beach or how their parents would bring them for a slice.
He said people have a fascination with beach pizza often taking pictures and videos of the pizza being made.
“It’s in the little details,” Orieques said that sets their traditional style of pizza apart where its sauce and cheese are put on the fresh made dough daily before it goes in the oven and their crust is crispy.
Hampton Beach Village District Chair Chuck Rage recalled heading to Salisbury in the offseason when he was a kid with his family to determine who had the best pizza that year.
It changed from time to time, he remembered, with the familial competition even adding Napoli’s Pizza in Haverhill to the challenge decades ago.
He chuckled when he remembered his father commenting about the slices going up to 30 cents each and how the pizza stands “would never make it.”
Decades later, families still flock to them, order countless slices of pizza and are served lasting memories.