The “Roni Cup” Trend Is Baffling Your Local Pizzeria… But They’re Not Complaining
Blame the fame on the internet.
The Pie Shoppe in Vancouver's Railtown neighbourhood serves up a Pep Supreme pizza topped with spicy honey and whipped black pepper and lemon ricotta.
Pepperoni pizza is about as classic as it gets. It’s hard to believe that this century-old staple—a usual suspect at bowling alleys, baseball games, and lazy Friday nights—could ever be considered trendy. But somehow, we’ve done it: the Roni Cup Trend is real.
“People are freaking out,” says Paul Grunberg, owner/operator of Vancouver’s Banda Volpi Group. Two of Grunberg’s restaurants, Elio Volpe and Pepino’s Spaghetti House, offer roni pizza topped with roni cups (the reason for the aforementioned freaking). “Roni cups” are born when small, thin slices of pepperoni are baked, causing the pep perimeter to curl up and in on itself. It’s a darling little vessel that usually holds a small pool of grease—and that’s part of the fun. “It definitely falls into that comfort food category,” Grunberg says. “Those beautiful, perfectly circular, crispy circles of pepperoni filled with hot pepperoni grease? It’s always a delight.”
That human beings love meat, cheese, dough, and grease is hardly breaking news, but Grunberg believes that social media is the source of the Roni Cup Trend. Right now, the hashtag #ronicup has over 20,000 hits on Instagram, and TikTok is full of drool-worthy pepperoni pizza videos. Gen Z in particular often turns to social media as a search engine when looking for new places to eat (and what to order on menus).
“Trends on social media are really dictating what’s hot and what’s not in terms of food culture,” Grunberg says. He calls the roni cup’s rise a “phenom” and admits it’s a little puzzling (“That’s kind of how it’s going with these trends—you’re just like, what the fuck?”) but also “not a bad thing.”
The Pepperone at Elio Volpe is a thin-crust, wood-fired pizza with tomato sauce, hot honey, and sesame seeds. Photo by Ian Lanterman.
Elio Volpe’s hat in the roni ring is the pepperone, a thin-crust, wood-fired pizza with pomodoro sauce, hot honey, and sesame seeds. The roni cup sprinkling is liberal but not over the top—for that, head to Pepino’s. “It’s basically just a pile of pepperoni,” Grunberg says with a laugh. The Big Pauly at Pepino’s is deep-dish and indulgent, with a hefty serving of roni cups (it’s definitely a beast to share).
Of course, Elio and Pepino’s aren’t the only local spots where you can find roni cup pizza. There’s AJ’s Brooklyn Pizza Joint, the East Van icon known for crispy, cheesy, square edges (the Uncle Roni is loaded with Ezzo Supreme cups). Straight Brooklyn’s five locations (Robson Street, Chinatown, Fraserhood, Gastown, and Granville Island) all offer massive roni cup pizza by the slice—pro tip: eat it before it soaks through your paper plate. The east side’s Ragazzi Pizza Co. has stone-baked roni-cup pizza, and Railtown’s The Pie Shoppe has a Pep Supreme pie topped with spicy honey and whipped black pepper and lemon ricotta.
To Grunberg, and probably to most of the other restaurant owners who have been serving great pizza since long before TikTok decided what was cool, roni cups are “no big deal”—but hey, that’s part of the charm. After all, the beauty of comfort food is in its simplicity and ability to bring back fond memories. “I think that it just makes you happy,” Grunberg says. We’ll cheers a roni cup to that.
