From the start, Donatos founder Jim Grote used precise measurements to ensure consistency and turned the “pizza fad” into a 154-location powerhouse. In 1963, Jim Grote’s dad famously warned him, “This whole pizza thing is just a fad.” But with $1,300 borrowed from his father and future father-in-law, Grote opened his first Donatos (donatos.com) pizzeria…
From Broadway beginnings in 1964 to 400 locations today, this fast-growing pizzeria served cheese slices to Ed Sullivan in its early years. Naples, Italy, native Michele Scotto opened Villa Pizzeria (now called Villa Italian Kitchen) in 1964 with a handful of authentic old-world recipes and a commitment to hospitality and quality ingredients. Located next to…
This Coney Island favorite attracts crowds year-round—and from around the world. Zagat once claimed of Totonno Pizzeria Napolitana (totonnosconeyisland.com), “Only God makes better pizza.” And this legendary pizzeria has certainly received its share of cult-like worship since its beginnings in 1924, when Anthony “Totonno” Pero opened his own pizzeria in Brooklyn’s Coney Island (he had…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
