Five decades later, Sy’s Pizza balances tradition and change

When I order a large Sicilian pizza with sausage and black olives, Sy’s Pizza owner Josh Zweifler asks if I want Mike’s Hot Honey sausage. No, I say. He asks if it’s because I don’t like spicy. I love spice, I tell him. It’s just that today I want what I’m used to, and that’s the crumbled sausage that has been my standing order at Sy’s for the past 35 years I’ve been eating here.

That collision between old and new is happening on multiple fronts at Sy’s. 

For nearly five decades, Sy’s Pizza has been a constant presence on the University of Oregon campus, serving up New York-style slices to generations of students. What began in 1978 as one man’s vision has evolved into a Eugene institution that has weathered changes in ownership, while maintaining most of its original character.

Sy’s original vision

The story begins with Sy Zeer, a New York transplant who came to Eugene seeking a place to raise his family away from the bustle of the city. In 1978, he opened Sy’s Pizza in the building which Zweifler says is now 112 years old. Zeer made authentic New York-style pizza at a time when it was hard to find on the West Coast.

Zeer ran the business until his retirement, when he sold it to Mark Fischer in 2006. Fischer went to work for Zeer himself for six months to learn everything about the business before taking it over.

“As far as I know, Mark ran it almost exactly the same way,” Zweifler said. 

And most of that legacy remained unchanged in the intervening years. The dough was unchanged. The sauce, made with Zeer’s original secret spice blend, has stayed exactly the same. 

Weathering the storm

About five years ago, Fischer sold Sy’s to Louis Olsen, who by all accounts, was a great guy and a great boss. Zweifler said Olsen had always dreamed of owning a pizza place, but he didn’t have experience running a food business, so things started to slip. Olsen died unexpectedly in 2023.

Olsen’s 19-year-old son, Nik, then took over the business, but the challenges, particularly during the COVID era, were too great for a young person without a business background. Zweifler purchased the business from the younger Olsen in 2024, when Sy’s was at the point of nearly being lost, either to lack of customers or from other pizza establishments who wanted the location.

Zweifler, a 36-year-old chef, has the food industry chops to make a business like Sy’s work in a new era. He’s worked in kitchens since he was 13, from hole-in-the-wall spots to establishments run by Michelin-starred chefs. Zweifler decided to buy Sy’s after making a go of chefing in Scotland but then returning to the States after finding it too difficult to secure work visas. He grew up in Siskiyou County, just over the border in California, and wanted a change of scenery.

“I was done living in big cities,” he said. “I went to college in San Jose and then lived in Austin for five years, and then I moved to Edinburgh in Scotland. And I just ended up in Eugene. I love going to the coast, and I love crabbing and fishing and foraging for mushrooms and all that. I love the weather. Eugene is just perfect for me.”

If he hadn’t bought Sy’s it was “going to be gone,” Zweifler said. “The only other people interested in buying the business just wanted to shut it down.”

Zweifler saw more than a money-making opportunity — he saw an opportunity and a responsibility to preserve something irreplaceable.

“I just feel so lucky to have been able to buy into this legacy,” he said.

Zweifler is further building community by launching a series of entertainment events he’s calling Eugene Secret Shows, with the first event planned for July 4. Follow the venue’s Instagram @EugeneSecretShow for tickets and event announcements.

Preserving the character

While Zweifler has made significant changes to operations along with some updates to the menu, he’s maintained the cheap, filling and tasty slices and whole pies that UO students and campus-area community have long expected from Sy’s. A slice of Neapolitan pizza — 12 inches from tip to crust and floppy enough to fold NY-style — is $5.

Despite years of chefing, Zweifler admitted he had never made pizza before becoming a pizza shop owner. But once the deal was done, he said, he spent “every waking minute” baking pizzas 12 hours a day for 3 months to try new recipes and perfect the dough.  

He also brings his experience and knowledge of quality ingredients to the new endeavor. The new dough recipe undergoes a minimum three-day cold fermentation, and Zweifler has upgraded to Bacio cheese, which is the best available pizza cheese, in his opinion. 

“We have the best cheese, the dough is great, and the sauce we haven’t changed,” he said. “Those three main things are as high quality as you will find in any pizza shop.”

One thing Zweifler did have to remove from the regular menu is the thick square-cut Sicilian slices with a foccacia-style dough, because the dough fermentation process requires too much time and space. He and his team still make a couple of pans each day, but customers have to ask for them, and once they’re sold, they’re gone for the day.

With Sy’s location so close to the UO campus, it’s expected that customers and employees are primarily students. Zweifler embraces the realities of college life. He understands that his employees may be slightly less than punctual, for instance, and he has extended Sy’s open hours to 3 a.m. on Saturdays during the school year. 

Sam Spencer, a 19-year-old environmental science major from Minnesota, said that Sy’s is the favorite place to get pizza for him and his friends.

“It’s really convenient,” he said. “You have to walk right by it to get pretty much anywhere on campus, and it’s a good price. The dining hall pizza is not good.”

In addition to the Mike’s Hot Honey sausage, a new menu item is a meatball sub, which he said was based on the idea of getting as much food to people for the cheapest price possible. A half-pound of meatballs smothered with sauce and cheese on a sub roll is only $10. 

Zweifler deliberately has not changed Sy’s decor, which includes the poster of John Lennon in New York in the dining room, the dining counter and five chrome-trimmed bar stools. Aside from a new but retro-style Coke cooler, parents of today’s students could walk in and have the same experience as when they were students themselves.

The view from Sy’s has changed in recent years, with the Glenwood restaurant, 7-11, and the building housing Excelsior Inn & Restaurant and Smith Family Bookstore all demolished in 2023 to make way for a 12-story apartment building. Another student apartment building, called Alder Chapter, is planned on East 13th Avenue, right next door to Sy’s. 

But while the neighborhood transforms around him, Zweifler remains committed to keeping the restaurant’s character intact.

“I don’t want to change the feeling of the place,” he said. “I want people to be able to come back here and go, ‘This is still Sy’s Pizza.’”

Want to go?

Sy’s Pizza
1211 Alder St.
541-686-9598
11 a.m. – 11 p.m. daily except Saturday 11 a.m. – 3 a.m. during the school year
https://www.sysnewyorkpizza.com