Tis’ the season of giving!
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy gifted $60,000 to save a struggling veteran-owned Baltimore pizzeria from permanently closing as customers have since flooded the store with orders.
Portnoy was traveling to Maryland for the Army-Navy football in mid-December when he made a pit stop at TinyBrickOven in the Federal Hill neighborhood to wrap up a day of filming his viral pizza reviews, according to his producer Austin Jenkins.
Store owner Will Fagg, a Navy veteran, was working behind the counter when the pizza savant arrived and he shared that his beloved shop was closing for good on Christmas Day.
Fagg said the shop’s inability to acquire a liquor license and cash flow problems was forcing him to close down.
“We can’t get our liquor license here,” Fagg told Portnoy in a video uploaded on Monday. “Our politicians gave this market down here their liquor license, but they won’t give us ours… it’s really disappointing.”
“We’re gonna have to keep this place open,” the Barstool Sports founder said as Fagg was boxing up the pizza.
Stepping outside to rank the pizza, Portnoy took one bite, highly complimented the pizza, and was even more stunned that they were gearing up to close.
“This is a thin, New York kind of style. I really like it,” Portnoy said in his review. “There’s no way this place should be going out of business. None.”
He then read from a sticker on the box that explained the business was closing and that “every purchase supports a veteran.”
Portnoy then met Fagg at the door and asked him “how much money” he needed to stay open for another year.
Fagg, taken back by the question, wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Well, if there’s somebody super rich right in front of your face who’s in the pizza business, and by serendipity is like, ‘What do you need to stay open for a year,’ you’ve got to give him some figure, because then he’s going to walk away,” Portnoy said.
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