A pizza place that used to be in Northeast Oklahoma City finds new life in Midtown.

Eastside Pizza House just reopened inside The Collective food hall at Northwest 10th and Harvey with a better focus.

The signature black crust is what catches everyone’s eye at Eastside Pizza House.

“It’s just the color that’s different. It tastes the same,” said owner Jabee Williams. “If you’re blindfolded, you wouldn’t know the difference,” he said.

It’s actually activated charcoal that turns the crust black and it’s led to meaningful discussions with customers.

“You think about judging a book by its cover and you think, ‘well this one’s black, so it can’t be good,’ and then you taste the black crust and realize the black parts have got the best flavor,” Williams said.

Williams is a rapper and community activist who grew up in Oklahoma City. He up with the black crust idea when he first opened Eastside Pizza House four years ago in Northeast Oklahoma City.

Then he closed the pizza house for a year to regroup, and just reopened inside The Collective in Midtown with a renewed focus.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Williams said. “I learned so much from doing the first location that it really helped me do this one a little bit better,” he said.

The concept is pizzas named after famous black figures from Oklahoma City, like Clara Luper — the Oklahoma City school teacher who led peaceful sit-in demonstrations for equality in the 1950s and 60s.

“I get to talk about Clara Luper all the time,” Williams said. “I’ll point to her and I’ll kind of give them some history and I’ll let them know about the memorial that was just made downtown and say, ‘while you’re there in this area, you can go and learn more about her just up the street,’” he said.

Williams also gets to talk about Jimmy Rushing all the time, the legendary blues pianist and singer from the 1930s and 40s.
He also gets to explain who Ralph Ellison is — the writer and literary critic who won the National Book Award in the 1950s.

“To be able to tell those stories just because they’re buying pizza has been a real blessing because a lot of people in Oklahoma, even growing up here, never heard those names before,” Williams said.

The most popular pizzas are the Jabee, named after the owner… which is an elote pizza full of roasted corn, jalapenos, and goat cheese.

The meat lovers pizza is called the Deep Deuce – named after the famous black cultural hub of downtown Oklahoma City back in the 1920s and 30s.

And the Eastside Supreme — is named for the east side of Oklahoma City.

One of the main changes at this new location is they offer slices now, not just full pizzas, which has been great for this come and go lunch and dinner spot.

“When you walk in, you kind of get a sense of the legacy, but also, the people who paved the way for me to even to even do what I’m doing,” Williams said.

You can always get pepperoni and cheese by the slice every day — plus whatever is the slice of the day.