The Spicy Spring is a square slice of Sicilian pizza with a fra diavolo sauce and enough thick-cut pepperoni to cover the entire surface, and it is the reason there is usually a line outside a small counter on Prince Street. It costs $7. Whether that is a lot for a slice depends entirely on whether you have had one, because it is closer to a small pie than to what most New Yorkers mean by a slice.
This counter runs to three in the morning most nights and five on weekends, which makes it one of the few reliable late options in Nolita. Ask Karpo whether it is still open right now and what else on the block is serving at this hour.
What is actually on it
The base is Sicilian — thick, airy, and fried on the underside in the pan so the bottom is genuinely crisp rather than merely firm. On top of that: fresh mozzarella, a spicy fra diavolo sauce rather than a plain tomato one, pecorino romano, and thick-cut pepperoni laid across the whole square rather than scattered.
The pepperoni is the technical detail that matters. Cut thick, it curls into a cup as it cooks, and the cup catches rendered fat and crisps at the rim. Covering the entire surface means every bite has one, which is not how a normal pepperoni slice works. The result is salty, fatty and hot in a way that is genuinely different from an ordinary pepperoni slice rather than just more of it.
The heat is moderate. The fra diavolo gives it a warm edge rather than a sharp one, and people who avoid spicy food generally have no trouble here. If you want the same square without it, the plain Sicilian is on the counter and is a good slice in its own right, just a considerably less interesting one.
The hours are the underrated part
Prince Street runs 10am to 3am on Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays, 10am to midnight on Wednesdays, and 10am to 5am Thursday through Saturday. That is a genuinely unusual schedule for a shop of this profile, and it changes what the place is for.
At two in the morning on a Friday, in a downtown neighbourhood where most kitchens have shut, a hot square of Sicilian pizza is an extremely strong option, and the queue at that hour is often shorter than at eight in the evening. The late window is the locals' window.
The daytime queue is the tourist queue and it is at its longest between roughly one and three in the afternoon and again at dinner. If you are going during the day, go before noon or in the gap around four.
How to order it properly
Order by the slice unless you are three or more people. A whole Spicy Spring pie serves three to four and runs around $43, with extra pepperoni available for about $4 more, which is worth it only if you already know you want the surface even denser.
One square is a substantial amount of food. Two people ordering two squares each will be defeated. The correct order for a pair is one Spicy Spring and one of something else — the plain Sicilian, or a round slice — split down the middle.
There is essentially no seating. This is a counter with a ledge and a doorway, and the pizza is meant to be eaten on the street or carried a block to a stoop. Take napkins; the fat that pools in the pepperoni cups goes somewhere, and it is usually your hand.
Whether it is worth the line
The honest answer is that it depends on the length of the line at the moment you arrive, because the pizza is very good and the wait is variable. At ten minutes, it is clearly worth it. At forty, on a Saturday afternoon, standing in a queue mostly composed of people who found the shop on their phones, it is a harder case, and there are excellent square slices elsewhere in the city with no queue at all.
What Prince Street has that the alternatives do not is the specific combination of that thick fried base, the fra diavolo and the full-surface pepperoni, which nobody else executes in quite the same proportions. It is a genuinely distinctive slice rather than a well-marketed ordinary one, and that is worth some amount of waiting. Just not any amount.
The neighbourhood helps make the case. Nolita is compact and worth walking, and Prince Street sits a few minutes from Elizabeth Street Garden, the shops on Mott and Mulberry and the edge of Little Italy, so the slice can be one stop on an afternoon rather than the whole point of the trip.
The other things on the counter
The shop is not a one-slice operation even though it is treated as one. The round slices are competent and cheaper, and the plain Sicilian without the fra diavolo and the pepperoni is a genuinely good square in its own right — lighter, less aggressive, and a better call if you are eating two slices rather than one.
There are also seasonal and rotating squares that turn up on the board, usually variations built on the same fried Sicilian base. Those are worth asking about, because they never appear in any of the coverage and the counter staff will tell you honestly which is moving that day.
What is not worth it is treating the shop as a full meal destination. There is no drinks programme beyond a fridge, no sides worth ordering and nowhere comfortable to sit. Buy pizza, leave, eat it within a few minutes. That is the whole intended use of the place and it works considerably better than trying to make an occasion of it.
Practical notes
27 Prince Street in Nolita; the 6 at Spring Street and the B, D, F and M at Broadway-Lafayette are both a few minutes away. Hours run 10am to 3am Monday, Tuesday and Sunday, 10am to midnight Wednesday, and 10am to 5am Thursday to Saturday. A Spicy Spring square is $7; a whole pie serving three to four is around $43, with extra pepperoni about $4. One square is a full portion. Almost no seating — eat standing or carry it. The late-night window has shorter queues than mid-afternoon.
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Ask Karpo first
The useful thing about this counter is how late it stays open, and that changes by the day of the week. Ask Karpo whether it is still serving right now, how long the line looks at this hour, and what else around Nolita and Little Italy is open if you are making a night of it.
