New Jersey ‘Pizza Bowl 3′ is coming to the Meadowlands

If Jersey pizza had a Super Bowl, "Pizza Bowl 3" would be it; and it's taking place Feb. 4 at Redd's Restaurant and Bar, located in Carlstadt next to MetLife Stadium.  Tickets go on sale on Dec. 17.

There will be 5 rounds of competition for Best Pizza and Best Meatballs in Jersey. Four regions with 52 judges each round, and a final round with approximately 40 VIP Judges.

I'll be hosting, and among the celebrity judges will be Eddie Brigati of the Young Rascals, who sang their hit "How Can I Be Sure?"; Jim Murdock from News 12; and actor Joseph Donofrio, who played young Tommy in "Goodfellas"; with more suprises to come. Pizza Bowl 3 benefits the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. 

This is the third year of the Pizza Bowl, which is the brainchild of Big Guy Madsen, who started it during the pandemic with his Jersey Pizza Joints Facebook page, which has grown to over 66.4K followers. I was grand marshall at their Jersey Pizza Crawl in September and it was fantastic.

Madsen appeared on my New Jersey 101.5 show to explain the Pizza Bowl process, and later emailed me:

During your show on December 1st, I launched 4 polls in our group and nominated a dozen or so Pizza Joints in each region, North Jersey, Central Jersey, Jersey Shore, and South Jersey.

Members or visitors to Jersey Pizza Joints Public Facebook group then can add a Name – Town and vote for any and all their favorites. On December 14th, we cut down to the top 32 Pizza Joints by the highest votes in each of the 4 regions – on December 21st we cut down to 16, and on December 28th down to 8 and on New year’s Day the Top 4 vote-getters receive an invitation to bake off Live @Redds Restaurant and Bar in the Meadowlands on Feb 4th, If any Pizza or Meatball Joint cannot attend the next highest vote-getter will take their place. Each Judge will sample 4 half slices of Pizza and 4 Meatballs from an anonymous region and vote for their favorite on a scorecard. They will not know the Region or Pizza Joints they are judging.

Winners receive the 'Pizza Bowl' Trophy for Pizza, and the 'Best Balls in Jersey' Trophy for Best Meatballs- plus bragging rights for a year.

Check out the voting here.

There will also be Hall Of Fame voting:

We are also Inducting 2 Hall of Fame Jersey Pizzaioli into JPJ’s HOF. The requirements are that they must be in the business for 40 years and have had a significant impact on their craft and communities. Our Crew aka members nominate and vote in the first 2 weeks of January and the top vote-getter Wins, I  (Madsen), as the admin get a pick based on these aforementioned requirements.

Pizza Bowl also raises money for Tunnel 2 Towers:

Eleven Dollars of every ticket sold will go to Tunnels to Towers Foundation and I have Chief Jack Oehm Board of Director of T2T attending to say a few words about the great work they do in paying off Mortgages for Gold Star families and catastrophically injured First responders. Please keep in mind that 93 cents of every dollar raised by T2T go out to help our Heroes and their families. East Rutherford, Carlstadt, and Rutherford will send Fire Trucks hanging American Flags.

This is going to be a great event and you should definitely be there so we can split a slice!

For tickets to Pizza Bowl 3 click here.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise only. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

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