It's a Shame About Ray's: New York Pizza Spat Leads to Occupy Ray's

There are so many different Ray’s Pizzas in New York, it can get a little confusing. You got your Ray’s, your Original Ray’s, your Famous Ray’s, your Famous Original Ray’s, and seemingly on and on. They are so ubiquitous that there is actually a pizza place in Brooklyn that is called Not Ray’s Pizza.

It’s been so ridiculous for so many years that the problem actually got a mention on a Seinfeld episode in which a lost Kramer calls Jerry:

Kramer: I’m looking at Ray’s Pizza. You know where that is?

Jerry: Is it Famous Ray’s?

Kramer: No, it’s Original Ray’s.

When you have confusion like that between businesses, lawsuits are bound to follow. And indeed they have.

According to the New York Post, Famous Ray's Pizza in Greenwich Village, at the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in downtown Manhattan, shut its doors back in October (citing a rent increase and loss of lease) when it was sued for copyright infringement by Famous Original Ray’s Pizza. This despite the fact that the former has been around for decades while the latter’s current ownership group has only been together since 1991.

The difference, of course, is that Famous Original Ray’s Pizza (whose website, rayspizza.com, is curiously down, although its Facebook page — which posted the closed photo with the "Ray's"-excised awning at right —is active) holds the copyright to Ray’s Pizza, Famous Ray’s Pizza, and Famous Original Ray’s Pizza. 

Pizza-loving residents of the neighborhood need not worry. Famous Original Ray’s plans to take over the space, the paper reports.

Of course, neither one of these places were the original Ray’s Pizza. That one opened in Little Italy in 1959 but “closed in October after a landlord dispute,” the Post reports. It's enough to make you want to grab a pie at Patsy's.

[image at top via Paul Haahr/Flickr]