Pizza Bowl 3: Pizza and meatball champions chosen by the people of NJ

Pizza Bowl 3 has come and gone. What an incredible incredible day it was!

What makes the Pizza Bowl trophy different than the other "Best Pizza" awards is that, unlike some national rag who sent a guy on a pizza tour, Pizza Bowl relies on the people of New Jersey to come out, and out they came.

These were the finalists coming into Saturday:

After over nine hours, 250 judges, 29 finalists, and over 250 pizzas and 2,000 meatballs, the winners were announced by "Big Guy Madsen" and crowned by former New York Giant Super Bowl Champion Stephen Baker "The Touchdown Maker."

Not to mention $21,502 raised by Jersey Pizza Joints for Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which exceeded their goal of $20,000.

Taking home the Pizza Bowl 3 trophy as this year's champion is Coniglio's in Morristown. They also have three pizza places in Brooklyn and three in Manhattan, but it was Morristown that will hoist the trophy.

Accepting the award, Nino Coniglio, holding his infant daughter and "getting a little emotional," in his acceptance speech said:

We opened 2 months ago in New Jersey. Coming back to New Jersey has been a huge thing for me and my family, we just had this beautiful girl, I can't thank my wife enough, I can't thank my son and Dave Tavolino, all the hard work they've done. I wouldn't be here without any of them. Thank you for the love guys, we'll keep on trying our hardest to give you the very best pizza.

Then, there were the Best Balls in Jersey Trophy. The champion was PizzAmore, Italian Kitchen in Carlstadt, owned by Johnny Speciale, aka "Johnny Meatballs." They're JPJ's first back-to-back champion — which is no easy feat!

Jersey Pizza Joints also inducted Giuseppe Corolla and Steve Bruno, from Mr. Bruno's fame, into the JPJ Hall of Fame.

Hundreds of people crowded Redds Restaurant and Bar in Carlstadt, and each ticket buyer was a judge. There was also a long list of celebrity judges, including Rock 'n Roll Hall of Famer Eddie Brigatti, member of the Young Rascals, who performed two of their hits "Groovin" and "Good Lovin" with the band Aloha Monkey. Their "Jersey Pizza Joints" song became the anthem of the evening.

Also in attendance was former Assemblyman Jack Ciatterrelli, who talked of his plans to run again for governor in 2025.

Plus all these celebrity judges:

The Pizza Bowl 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. The man truly cares about the pizza community and is doing everything possible to help these small business owners; as well as Tunnell 2 Towers. I was the grand marshall at their Jersey Pizza Crawl in September, and it was fantastic!

I can honestly tell you: each year, the Pizza Bowl gets better and better. There was so much love in the room, not to mention pizza, meatballs and fresh mozzarella; I can't wait for next year!

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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