Dave Portnoy Saves Struggling Pizza Shop from Government Bureaucrats at the Last Possible Minute

When Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy walked into a pizza shop, he had no idea that he would soon be saving the entire restaurant from the brink of a needless bankruptcy.

The Monday edition of “Barstool Pizza Review,” in which Portnoy reviews pizzerias from across the country, showed him sampling the pie from TinyBrickOven in Baltimore, Maryland.

He soon learned that the small business was suffering under local officials, who refused to approve the restaurant’s liquor license while approving the license for another market nearby, meaning they would soon have to close their doors.

But Portnoy was moved by the upbeat demeanor of the owner, Will Fagg, and decided to save the restaurant.

“We can’t get our liquor license here,” Fagg told Portnoy. “Our politicians gave this market down here their liquor license, but they won’t give us ours.”

WARNING: The following video contains language that may offend some readers. 

Barstool Pizza Review – TinyBrickOven (Baltimore, MD) pic.twitter.com/hDqhclD45D

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) December 23, 2024

Portnoy briefly stepped outside to taste the pizza, which he described as “very good, thin, New York-kinda style” and gave the pie a robust 7.9 rating.

Then Portnoy decided to intervene and make sure the restaurant, which Fagg said is a neighborhood favorite, would not close its doors before Christmas.

“How much money do you need to stay open for, like, a year?” Portnoy asked.

“That’s a really good question. I’m not sure,” Fagg replied.

“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 gotta give him some figure,” Portnoy insisted.

“I think we could probably get our liquor license and continue to stay open if we had $60,000,” Fagg answered.

“Done,” Portnoy said, shaking Fagg’s hand as the small business owner grinned from ear to ear.

Portnoy is no stranger to how regulation strangles entrepreneurs trying to provide for their families, pay their employees, and serve their communities.

The digital media executive spent much of the COVID lockdowns raising money to save as many small businesses as possible from draconian health mandates.

To be clear, Portnoy is far from a conservative stalwart, and he is definitely aware that filming an act of charity and posting it on social media would by no means harm his own public image.

But in any case, like millions of other Americans, Portnoy rightly cannot stand how the government gets in the way of private enterprise, needlessly stifling commerce and making life harder for everyday, productive people, like the owners and employees of TinyBrickOven.

The wet blanket of overregulation must be taken off our economy.

That is the truth, no matter how you slice it.

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