With artifacts chronicling NEPA’s anthracite coal history and potato pizzas that pizza lovers travel great distances to sample, Ferri’s is a destination pizzeria.
There are several reasons why Ferri’s Pizza in Moscow, Lackawanna County, is regarded as one of the most historic and unique pizzerias anywhere, not just in Pennsylvania.
Italian immigrant Gaetano Ferri first opened the shop in Old Forge in 1936. A coal miner by day, Ferri operated the shop in the evenings, and it is widely recognized as the first dedicated pizzeria to open in “The Pizza Capital of the World,” as opposed to a tavern that also served pizza.
Ferri’s holds the distinction of being “The area’s only anthracite coal mine theme pizza shop,” as their pizza box proclaims (and I suspect you’d be hard-pressed to find another one anywhere outside of NEPA.) Third-generation owner Bill Ferri had a keen interest in the history of the region’s anthracite coal mines his grandfather worked in, and, as an adult, would crawl into abandoned mines to collect artifacts. Those historic items are exhibited throughout the shop, headlined by a replica of an abandoned coal mine at the entrance.
Ferri’s is also considered the home of the potato pizza. Bill Ferri, who died in 2024, served up the first potato pie in 1985, upon request from a customer. Forty-plus years later, the shop has become a go-to spot in NEPA for those looking to get their potato pizza fix during Lent, when many pizzerias in the region make pizzas based on pagach (or pagash), a traditional, meatless Eastern European dish featuring dough topped with mashed potatoes, cheese, onions, and fried cabbage, that is commonly associated with the Lenten season.
If the idea of a potato pizza sets off visions of a carb bomb going off in your stomach, I’d say don’t knock it until you try it—just try it in moderation.
The potato pizza at Ferri’s is served in the traditional NEPA tray-style, with 12 cuts. Even topped with mashed potatoes, the crunch hits you right away—you’ll hear it over the radio and nearby conversation. We’re talking serious snap. A few bites in, you’ll begin to notice that for something that is essentially an open-face, handheld pierogi, it’s filling, though not too heavy. I put back three slices—excuse me, cuts—in one sitting and managed to walk out under my own power. (FYI: It didn’t lose a bit of crunch when re-heated the next day).
As for what, exactly, is in the Ferri’s potato pizzas, we’re left to guess. Ferri’s wife Janice and daughter Sabrina make them these days, and they’re not giving up the recipe. (“This is a closely guarded secret, like Bush’s Baked Beans,” Sabrina joked, referencing the TV commercial.)
My guess: a layer of hearty mashed potatoes (there has to be some serious butter whipped in) topped with a little bit of onion, and a creamy blend of American and cheddar cheese. I can say for certain that there were chives on top and that it was seriously tasty.
“When he would make it in the back, none of the employees were allowed back there because everybody does want to copy it,” Janice said. “Everybody always wonders about the color, and why it tastes like that. He added different things over the years and he really came up with something different. And it seems in the last five years, it’s really blown up. Every year, it seems someone else is making a version of it now.”
I saved enough room to try a couple of cuts of regular pizza topped with pepperoni (sliced and ground) and sweet peppers that was fantastic. It had the same crunch as the potato pizza, while the sweetness of the peppers really popped on top of a sauce that was somewhere between sweet and savory.
For those who like to get adventurous with their pizzas, Ferri’s does a pizza of the month on Tuesdays (except during Lent). Past iterations have featured creative twists like French dip, chili dog, chicken and waffles, and trays fused with seafood and pasta.
Note that if you’re headed to Ferri’s for the first time, it’s carryout and cash only (though there’s an ATM in the shop) and open just four days a week: Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
And if you’re travelling to Ferri’s from out of the area for the potato pizza, be sure to add your name to the wall-spanning list featuring the hometowns of customers who have trekked to Moscow from as far away as Texas and California. A mosaic of Post-It notes on another wall indicates how far they’ve shipped their potato pizzas, including such far-flung locations as Japan, Australia, and Alaska.
Elsewhere on the walls at Ferri’s is a chalk board indicating that last year, the shop used 3,480 pounds of potatoes during Lent to make their potato pizzas. That’s 87 pounds of potatoes per day. In other words, a lot of potatoes.
Sabrina said that in previous years, they were averaging around 2,000 potatoes.
“That’s the number to beat, not that we try to beat it,” she said.
