Study Shows Tampa Is A Great City For Pizza Lovers

When a lot of people think of the best cities to get a great pizza, they immediately think of places like New York or Chicago. But a new study from Anytimeestimate.com shows that Tampa is one of the top 15 cities in the country with the best pizza options.

Pizza connoisseurs from all over the country are moving to the Bay area but still claim their hometown is the best pizza city. But according to this study, Tampa has outnumbered iconic pizza hot spots like Chicago, New York and New Jersey. How does one rank the best pizza city? The website tells us they used a number of criteria to analyze the cities with the best pizza options.

The metrics used are as follows:

Cities with a large number of independent pizza restaurants get extra points, and cities dominated by large pizza chains suffered a small penalty.

Check out the list below to see where Champa Bay ranks for best pizza city!

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The Motor City ranks high in multiple metrics, including No. 1 in pizza passion — meaning Detroiters appreciate a wide variety of pizza styles, according to local Google search trends.

Cleveland ranks No. 5 in the nation for most pizza restaurants per capita, with 12.3 per 100,000 residents — 54% more than the average city measured.

With a Google Trends rating for different types of pizza that's 34% higher than average, Ohio's capital ranks No. 3 in pizza passion.

The Boston pizza scene is a hit: The town has a pizza shop every 1.27 miles — half the average of the cities we analyzed (2.82 miles)

Despite a penalty for its volume of chain pizza restaurants (12.9 per 100,000 residents compared to the average of 4.9 in the 50 cities we studied), Pittsburgh ranks high on plenty of pizza metrics.

The home of the Indy 500 is also home to an independent pizza scene, with four independently operated pizza shops per 100,000 residents — 30% more than the average city we looked at.

Providence ranks No. 1 for search interest in Neapolitan pizza— an authentic Italian variation topped with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella.

St. Louis also has its own style of pizza: Hometown favorite Imo's serves the dish in shareable squares complete with a thin, crispy foundation and Provel cheese blanketing every inch.

Fans of Philadelphia 'za are open to other varieties of pizza as well. The city ranks No. 2 in search interest for pizza Margherita and No. 3 for Sicilian style.

This city by the river really delivers. Norfolk (along with Virginia Beach) ranks No. 1 in search interest for both meat pizza and New York-style pizza. 

Baltimore boasts 3.9 independent pizza parlors per 100,000 residents — 24% more than the average city in the study.

Champa Bay has a restaurant every 1.75 miles, 38% better than the average city we studied. Tampa also has 4.3 independent pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents — seventh-most of the cities we measured.

The city ranks top 10 in our pizza passion metric due to a 15% higher average Google Trends rating across different pizza variations when compared to the average city in our study.

With a 37% higher average Google Trends rating across 20 pizza variations, the city stands out as No. 2 nationally in our pizza passion metric.

Nashville residents can save their money for music venues thanks to low prices on cheese pizza. With an average cost of $6.65 across all sizes, cheese pizza is 22% cheaper for Nashvillians compared to the average city we analyzed.