Black Pony Pizza opens in the Short North with a rotating Detroit-style menu
Ryan Murphy and Ken Shick have opened Black Pony Pizza on North High Street, translating a decade of commercial kitchen experience and private recipes into a public menu of thick-crust pies that rotate through the year.
Black Pony Pizza opened on September 17 at the corner of North High and West Starr streets in the Short North. The room serves Detroit-style pies built from a repertoire developed by co-owner Ryan Murphy over a decade in commercial kitchens and refined at private gatherings.
Murphy handles the culinary direction while Ken Shick manages operations, a division that keeps the kitchen focused on the dough and the bake. The menu relies on a handful of house recipes that remain constant, supplemented by specials that rotate throughout the year, with the most popular pies making more frequent appearances.
The current lineup includes the I’ll Have Another, which pairs red sauce and a house cheese blend with Ezzo’s cup-and-char pepperoni, herbed ricotta, a balsamic drizzle, and fresh basil. The Dark Star offers a white sauce base layered with ricotta and an herb-balsamic mushroom blend.
The featured special, the Fusaichi Pegasus, rests on an olive oil base and carries char siu pork, strawberry sumac jam, charred scallions, and burrata. The pairing of cured pork, sweet fruit preserve, and cold cheese defines the current rotation and sets the expectation for future specials.
The restaurant operates on a restricted weekly schedule, opening Thursday through Sunday. Evening service runs until 9 p.m. on Thursday and 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with midday hours beginning at 11 a.m. on the weekend. For the reader seeking a specific crust, the thick, crispy Detroit style provides a dense alternative to the standard pies in the district.
Moving from private gatherings to a public storefront requires a kitchen to anchor its identity before testing the room. Keeping the core recipes fixed while letting the specials absorb the seasonal shifts allows the cooks to master their baseline crust before introducing char siu and sumac to the menu.