Pizzeria Badiali has built one of the most talked-about slice shops in the city, but a growing lineup of collaborations and side projects is raising a genuinely interesting question: are the spinoffs starting to outshine the core business?
Between a limited-edition Miss Vickie’s chip flavour built around its cult-favourite vodka sauce and a headline-making collaboration with Shake Shack on a three-item limited-time menu, Badiali’s brand extensions have generated a level of buzz that arguably rivals, or even exceeds, the attention its Dovercourt storefront gets on any given night. Each collaboration leans on the same signature element — that spicy vodka rosé sauce — reinforcing it as the shop’s defining flavour across every format it appears in.
Whether the side hustles are outright more lucrative than the pizzeria itself is hard to say for certain, but the sheer frequency and visibility of the partnerships suggests Badiali’s team has found a genuinely effective way to extend the brand’s reach well beyond its physical footprint.
Following Badiali’s growing empire of collabs? The original Dovercourt pizzeria is still where it all started — worth a visit to see what the fuss is about.