landbspumoni-preview

L&B Spumoni Gardens

This block-long Brooklyn institution has been serving up spumoni and iconic square slices for more than 70 years. Ludivico Barbati learned from a local baker how to make spumoni and Italian ices in a garage in 1938. At first, Barbati, who had emigrated from Italy in 1917, sold his products in a horse-driven wagon up…

delorenzo-preview

De Lorenzo’s Tomato Pies


“Once you think you know everything,” Gary Amico says, “that’s when things go bad.” The De Lorenzo’s pizza lineage goes back four generations to Italian immigrants Pasquale and Maria De Lorenzo, who helped their four sons (Jimmy, Joe, Johnny and Alexander or “Chick”) open a tomato pie restaurant in 1936. Eventually, Chick opened his own…

CapeCodCafe-preview

Cape Cod Café

This casual concept is one of the few remaining original purveyors of old-school bar pies in eastern Massachusetts. With a son on the way and a desire to open his own business, World War II veteran E. James Jamoulis bought the Cape Cod Café in Brockton, Massachusetts, in 1947. The bar, like others in the…

Bocce-preview

Bocce Club Pizza

Fueled by bocce ball and a passion for a good pie, this family-run pizzeria has been a Buffalo-area favorite for more than 60 years. After returning from a post-WW II tour of Italy, Dino Pacciotti—the son of Italian immigrants in Buffalo in the 1920s—had the traditions of his ancestors on his mind: namely, bocce ball…

papas-preview

Papa’s Tomato Pies

The oldest family-owned pizzeria in the United States turned 100 last year. Papa’s Tomato Pies (papastomatopies.com) wasn’t the first pizzeria in Trenton, New Jersey, when it opened in 1912, but it’s the only one still standing today—more than a century later. Naples transplant Giuseppe (“Joe”) Papa was only 17 years old when he opened the pizzeria’s…

SalCarmines-preview

Sal and Carmine

Founded by “the Dom DeMarco of Manhattan,” this Upper West Side pizzeria has been serving up slices and ices for more than 50 years. After immigrating to the United States from Italy in 1957, Sal Malanga worked 22 hours a day to save up for a pizza shop, and in the summer of 1959, that…

Santarpios-preview

Santarpio’s Pizza

Baseball-loving Joseph Santarpio gave up a shot at playing for the New York Yankees to run his dad’s bakery—and Red Sox pizza fans are forever grateful. Pizza might never have been introduced at Boston-based Santarpio’s Pizza (santarpiospizza.com) if Joseph Santarpio didn’t turn down an offer to play for the New York Yankees. His father, Francisco,…

Pepes-preview

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana

Best-known for his White Clam Pizza, Frank Pepe is also credited as the originator of New Haven-style pies. Today, pizza from New Haven, Connecticut, is legendary for its misshapen appearance, thin crust and charred edges—but someone had to start it all, and that someone was Frank Pepe, who in 1925 opened up Frank Pepe Pizzeria…

Santillos-preview

Santillos Brick Oven Pizza

Lou Santillo started out delivering bread in a horse and buggy. Today, Santillos creates handcrafted pies suited to individual customers’ tastes. Combine three generations of pizza making, an antique oven that’s more than 100 years old, and a passion for the perfect pie, and you’ve got one of the most unique pizzerias in the country:…

dfhdfhd df

Savo’s Pizza & Family Restaurant

This Pennsylvania-based “little pizzeria that could” overcame hardships through innovation and sheer will to succeed. At 19 and 22 years old, brothers Ray and Michael Savokinas were ready to take the plunge into pizza when a local pizzeria owner who was leaving town promised it’d cost only $800 to set up shop. The year was…