A scary-headlined Post story might lead one to believe that Mom n' Pop pizza shops are under fire from national interlopers like Domino's and Papa John's, but the actual statistics prove heartening: "While the major chains have seen growth in the Big Apple, there are still only 36 Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Sbarro's franchises combined in Manhattan - compared with more than 500 independent pizzerias." Not that we'd have anything against a few more Sbarro's... our favorite New York pizzeria.
· Pizza Wars Heat Up [NYPost via Eater]
· Mo' Moneychangers and Extra Corporate Cheese [Curbed]
UPDATE: Slice goes all differential equation on the stats: "1.80 x Y = 26. Where Y = the number of chain stores five years ago. Dividing 1.80 by 26 yields Y. 1.80 because the 1 would give you the original number and the .80 would represent the 80 percent increase. Again: Math nerds, doublecheck me. Y = 14.444... So if there were 14.444 stores, and let's round down to 14 to be generous, and now there are 26, that's a total increase of 12 stores. Among three national chains."