Goodfellas Pizzeria closing after bad Barstool review? Well, not exactly.
Two weeks after a negative online review by the founder of a sports site, Lexington’s Goodfellas Pizzeria announced it is “closing down shop to retrain.”
The restaurant said in an Instagram post that support from the community had “reignited our purpose” so all locations would be “closing down shop to retrain our staff and get back to basics- delicious, hot slices and exceptional service.”
But don’t worry, you won’t even have to skip lunch.
Co-owner Alex Coats clarified that the restaurants, including the one on the Pepper Distillery campus that Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy panned, are doing the training in the mornings while they are closed.
The training is “at the beginning of the day, two to three hours before we open,” Coats said. “It’s while we are closed, but we’re not closing. ... We started Monday and will go through Wednesday, I think.”
After Goodfellas posted the announcement, Portnoy tweeted it out to his Barstool Sports followers on Twitter, saying: “This is stunning. I’m now rooting hard for @GoodfellasPie.”
That’s a far cry from two weeks ago, when Portnoy’s one-bite review of Goodfellas merited Barstool’s worst rating ever, the site’s only “0.0” score, he said.
On camera, he said the pizza was “ice cold,” then spit it out as he walked away after an employee asked them to stop filming on the patio.
“I’m going to give this a 0.0. Goodfellas, kicked out, national pizza review, 0.0!” Portnoy said. As the employee offered to take the pizza, “so you don’t litter,” Portnoy walked off towards the parking lot of the Pepper campus saying, “It’s trash! Trash! What a mistake that guy made! Kicked out!”
After his fans, known as “stoolies,” began to pile on the criticism online, Goodfellas apologized. Lexington pizza fans rallied to the restaurant’s defense, coming out in droves for lunch the next day.
Goodfellas has printed new shirts with the “0.0” embedded into the name to remind employees “of where we’ve been, but also our dedication to you, our Goodfellas familia,” according to the Instagram post with the hashtag #standwithgoodfellas.
And now you can even get your own shirt at Shop Local Kentucky, the restaurant said.
Portnoy’s post had almost 10,000 “likes” on Twitter after only a couple of hours, with several commenters praising the move. “Great story of leveraging bad press into good content,” said one. “Lemons to lemonade,” said another.
Kentucky Sports Radio’s Matt Jones also wished the Goodfellas restaurant crew well after the announcement, saying “It’s an awesome place.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2018 at 3:50 PM with the headline "Goodfellas Pizzeria closing after bad Barstool review? Well, not exactly.."