Pizza Brain
Pizza Brain Museum of Pizza CulturePizza Brain is an American pizza culture museum and pizzeria, and home to the world's largest collection of pizza memorabilia and collectibles, headquartered in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, United States, with the flagship restaurant on Frankford Avenue.
In May 2010, Kensington-based artist Brian Dwyer, along with Christopher Powell, organized "Give Pizza Chance"—Philadelphia's first pizza-based art show—in which pizza served as muse for more than 25 artists who displayed their work at a local gallery. Inspired by the show's success, Dwyer became fascinated with the communal and seemingly boundless reach of pizza, seeking out more pizza-related memorabilia, with the intention of turning the pizza art exhibit into a yearly occurrence.
In December 2010, Dwyer connected with Michael Carter, Joseph Hunter and Ryan Anderson via Circle of Hope, a Brethren in Christ church located in the Fishtown and East Kensington sections of Philadelphia. Carter, a business executive, left academic publishing to make meaningful investments in the renewal of his hometown. Hunter, a pizzaioli recently transplanted from South Carolina to Philadelphia, sought a venue where pizza could bring communities together., Anderson, a master carpenter worked on craft projects at the nexus of art and utility.
In January 2011, the four formed a business to turn Dwyer's pizza art show into a business model- a pizzeria & museum where members of the community could connect and celebrate a common love of pizza. Together they curated the world's largest collection of pizza related items, earning a Guinness World Record in summer 2011.
On September 7, 2012, Pizza Brain opened its doors to the public. (The company's name comes from the frequent misspelling of Dwyer's first name, in which the 'a' and the 'i' are transposed to spell 'Brain.').
Guinness officially adjudicated Pizza Brain's collection before the company formed as an LLC. On July 31, 2011 Guinness World Records under individual category and Dwyer's name, Guinness certified the collection as "the world's largest collection of pizza-related items".
Pizza Brain's Guinness-certified collection is the core of its Museum of Pizza Culture, which is increasingly recognized as a food museum., Today, the collection ranges from the familiar (toys, puzzles, magazine ads, comic books, etc.) to the absurd - including a stainless-steel pizza cutter shaped like the USS Enterprise, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Drop plinko arcade game circa 1990, an original Spanish poster print of the film Do the Right Thing and more than 150 vinyl 45s and LPs spanning 6 decades honoring pizza in song and lyric.
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