Cuts & Slices
Curt Saunders
Before we ever tried the pizza at Cuts & Slices, we’d seen high praise about it on the social media accounts of Styles P, Jadakiss and other New York rappers. That piqued our interest in the Bed-Stuy pizzeria...and it made us curious about its hip-hop connections.
“Before Cuts & Slices, I owned an online sneaker concierge service,” explains owner Randy Mclaren, 35. “I got all the expensive sneakers — Supreme, Jordans — and built up a crazy clientele.”
Randy still runs his sneaker business, called Mclaren Kick Shop, which he founded in 2011, serving clients such as Rihanna, Fabolous and a host of professional athletes. “Whenever those items came up and they couldn’t get their hands on it, I was pretty much the go-to person in New York City who they would call,” says the East Flatbush native.
Yet with the rise of big corporate websites for rare kicks, the sneaker resell market started fizzling out and Randy decided to pivot. With a passion for food, and a decade of experience working in restaurants, he set his sights back on his first love. A friend pitched the idea of a pizzeria with a conjoined barbershop in the building next door. (Get it? Cuts and Slices?)
“I’m like, ‘No, that’s a dumb idea,’” Randy laughs. But while the combination-barbershop concept never took off, Randy did like the notion of a pizzeria with high-quality, hand-tossed pies like the kind he grew up with.
He opened Cuts & Slices in February of 2018, where he has a whole new dedicated following for serious pizza with an array of inventive toppings. Think oxtail, shrimp and lobster scampi, chopped cheese, chicken and waffles — and much more.
Curt Saunders
Curt Saunders
“It’s supposed to be a vibe when you come here.”
Curt Saunders
Curt Saunders
Curt Saunders
When you step up to the Cuts & Slices counter, Randy wants you to feel slightly overwhelmed by the variety. While he has about 25 pizzas in the repertoire, the shop typically displays nine or 10.
There’s shrimp and lobster scampi pizza, drizzled with garlic pesto. There’s a pizza generously studded with tender, flavorful oxtail that is slow-cooked and deboned in house. The chopped cheese slice — with seasoned ground beef, onion, peppers, cheddar, mozzarella and sriracha-ketchup sauce — tastes just like the bodega staple. The sauce-free chicken and french toast pizza serves up a unique balance of crisp chicken, cinnamon french toast, mozzarella cheese and a savory maple syrup.
The pizzeria offers a rotating vegan specialty daily (we peeped a vegan chorizo pie on a recent visit). Among other delicious options are curry shrimp; jerk chicken; crab, corn and tomato; and barbecue salmon, all on a chewy crust with a nice crisp.
“I pretty much smoke and come up with cool ideas all the time,” Randy says of the 420-inspired origins of his creative toppings. At Cuts & Slices, you can order half of a slice (a “cut”) to try more varieties in one sitting. “The average person can only eat about two slices,” he says. “So if you get four cuts, you have four different options, but you still got your two slices of pizza.”
Curt Saunders
Curt Saunders
Cuts & Slices is a tiny shop so, even putting COVID aside, people regularly line up out the door for their favorite slice. But Randy has made the most of his small space, giving a hip-hop aesthetic with Supreme skateboard decks, pictures of sneakers and a neon sign stating “It was all a dream.” Outside the shop he commissioned an eye-catching Krusty the Clown mural from prolific street artist. Jerkface.
“It’s supposed to be a vibe when you come here,” Randy says. “Especially since there aren’t that many Black-owned pizzerias, I wanted to bring a little bit of myself to the space and show that we can do anything.”
93 Howard Ave, 718-552-2652, Cuts & Slices on Instagram
