Olmo’s Craig Hutchinson with New Haven Pizza Club’s Michael Pollack, Jim Baronowski and Megan Gaudiosi. Credit: Lisa Reisman photos It could well have been a sunk cost. Literally. On Sunday, the pipes froze at Olmo. On Monday they burst. The popular bagelry on the corner of Trumbull and W hitney was forced to close. As it happened, Monday was National Pizza Day, an occasion that no city takes more seriously than New Haven, and no one in New Haven observes more religiously than Michael Pollack, founder of the New Haven Pizza Club, artist, and impresario of good works relating to art and pizza. Pollack’s brainchild: a coupling of Olmo and Nolo Pizza to birth a pizza bagel. The plan: the debut of the pizza bagel on Monday night at Nolo at an event to benefit the Feeding Families Foundation, a nonprofit that has local restaurants donating meals to families of critically ill pediatric patients. The flyers had been printed and distributed, the press release sent out. Slice Register, a point of sale for independent pizzerias, had designed the pizza bagel boxes for the occasion. But Olmo’s kitchen was underwater. “We didn’t want to have to cancel the event, so we called Gioia [New Haven on Wooster Street] and they let us use their ovens to make all of the bagels today and bring it here,” Olmo partner Jim Baronowski recalled on Monday night, as his crew handed out another box of pizza bagels amid the boisterous crowd. “It’s pretty amazing, and it’s about all of us as a community, working together, coming through for each other,” he said. Along with Nolo and Olmo, a few bold-faced names joined the celebration. There was CT FoodGirly Alex Acquarulo assessing the honey pot pizza and the fresh basil pesto, and rhapsodizing about small businesses supporting each other to her roughly 18,600 Instagram followers. And Robert Greenberg, founder of Lost in New Haven, reminiscing about Lender’s Bagels and reminding everyone within earshot that they were standing in the former space of the iconic Jet Cleaners. Well into the evening, there was a cameo appearance by Billy Pustari, owner of Modern Apizza, in reportedly his first-ever visit to Nolo in the State Street diaspora—and to hear Feeding Families Foundation’s Jeff Dorman tell it, a hero among heroes in supporting the foundation. Samantha and Jeff Dorman of the Feeding Families Foundation. “‘What can I do?’” Dorman recalled Pustari telling him once he learned about his foundation; it came into being as a result, he explained, of him and wife Sam experiencing first-hand the difficulty in finding sustenance at a hospital while caring for their two-year-old with leukemia. “And then he said ‘we’ll start delivering pizzas and we’ll do it on Fridays for life’ and I said ‘isn’t Fridays the busiest day for you?’ and he said ‘yeah, but everybody eats pizza on Fridays.’ And it’s been over a year now, however many weeks that’s been.”   Over near the wood-fired ovens, Nolo owner Derek Bacon put it plainly. “This is about family-owned businesses coming together to do good work for our city,” he said, offering a shout-out to New Haven Pizza Club’s Pollack for orchestrating the event and donating proceeds from the sale of his artwork to the cause; the event raised over $3,000, Pollack later reported.   “We all have the same intention,” Bacon added. “Working hard, helping each other when we need it, and serving our community.” Nolo owner Derek Bacon, Jeff Dorman of Feeding Families Foundation, New Haven Pizza Club’s Michael Pollack, and Robert Greenberg of Lost in New Haven. Credit: The post Pizza Bagels Fuel Feeding Families Fundraiser appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less