Somerville Pizza Place Owner's Spat With Dave Portnoy Goes Viral

SOMERVILLE, MA — An expletive-laden, verbal confrontation between Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and the owner of Somerville's Dragon Pizza has gone viral.

The confrontation took place outside Dragon Pizza, located at 233 Elm St., while Portnoy, the brash Massachusetts native who recently reacquired Barstool, filmed a review of Dragon's pizza for his "One Bite Pizza Review" series. A video of the confrontation was posted Thursday on YouTube.

In the video, Portnoy walks out of the restaurant holding one of its pizzas, takes a bite and begins offering his review while standing on the sidewalk. He refers to the pizza as "a floppy mess" and having "strong parmesan," calling the pizza "an acquired taste." Though he admits he is "not the biggest parm guy." Portnoy eventually gives the pizza a 6.4 out of 10 rating

Multiple pedestrians walking by the shop during Portnoy's review do express how much they like Dragon's pizza and gelato.

At one point, the owner of Dragon comes out to tell Portnoy: "Enjoy your pizza as any customer, but I don't appreciate what you do judging a business with one bite."

HITC.com has identified the Dragon owner as Charlie Redd, who started the business with Keenan Langlois in 2018.

A bit later, the owner walks out of the shop again and says to Portnoy: "Let me be a little clearer, move on."

At which point, Portnoy replies: "Let me be clear, f-k you."

The confrontation then escalates with the owner saying he doesn't like the Barstool platform and telling Portnoy: "You're a joke to me, dude."

Portnoy tells the owner that he has "raised 50 million dollars for small business," and he later sticks up his middle finger to the owner and tells the owner his t-shirt is "six sizes too small."

As of Friday, the video has been posted on news outlets around the world, including: The Daily Mail, New York Post, Hindustan Times, Hoodline, Larry Brown Sports, The Blaze and The Messenger News.