The New Orleans Pizza Wars Are Happening Now

So the Pizza Wars exist, pitting several of the city's leading pizza joints against one another in a fight for ... what, exactly? According the the Pizza Wars' Facebook page, it seems like it's basically just for bragging rights (as well as for bringing some cool prizes to customers, but more on that later). More important than the bragging rights, however, is the competition's goal to simply "put pizza on the map in NOLA," though as of this writing, the Facebook page has only 69 likes, so hopefully that whole putting-pizza-on-the-map thing start picking up before the contest ends.

This is the first year of the contest, which apparently (and quietly) began in mid-February and lasts until April 15. They were founded by a handful of pizza shop owners, including Jeff Baron of The Dough Bowl, Crescent Pie & Sausage and Pizzicare.

It works like this: Anyone who wants to can pick up a "Pizza Wars Passport" from any of the participating pizzerias. Each one will stamp the Passport when people come in to eat. Once people get stamps from all the pizzerias, they vote for their favorite and return the Passport into a ballot box, available at each location. So simple.

Here are the pizzerias participating:

· The Dough Bowl
· Pizzicare
· Crescent Pie & Sausage Co.
· Reginelli's
· Theo's
· Slice
· Ancora
· Pizza Delicious
· Midway
· Louisiana Pizza Kitchen

In addition to the whole voting thing to find a winning pizzeria, anyone turning their Passport gets entered into a raffle. Grand prize is two Brass Passes to Jazz Fest, while second place gets a $25 gift card to each pizzeria and third place gets a $150 pizza party from one.

· Pizza Wars [Facebook]