Grimaldis

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria is an American pizzeria chain from the New York City area with several restaurants throughout the United States. Its most famous restaurant is under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn at 1 Front Street, next door to its original location. It does not sell slices, only whole pies. The pizzas are renowned for being cooked by coal-fired brick oven.

History

Patsy Grimaldi, the founder of Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, learned to make pizza at age ten at Patsy’s Pizzeria, his uncle Patsy Lancieri’s restaurant in Italian Harlem in 1941. Decades later, Grimaldi decided to go into business for himself and originally planned to his own restaurant in Manhattan. However, Grimaldi believed coal-fired brick ovens produced the best pizza and new coal ovens were illegal in Manhattan. As a result, Grimaldi opened Grimaldi’s Pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York in 1990.

In the late 1990s, Patsy Grimaldi retired, selling the Grimaldi’s name and franchise (except for the Hoboken locations) to restaurateur Frank Ciolli. In 2011, the building’s owner declined to renew Ciolli’s lease, so he renovated an abandoned bank next door and moved the restaurant over. The next year, Patsy Grimaldi came out of retirement and opened a new pizzeria called Juliana’s Pizza in the original building, resulting in enmity between himself and Ciolli.[1]

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria is one of the most popular pizzerias in New York City. In recent years, Zagat Survey rated Grimaldi’s No. 1 Pizzeria in New York. It was named one of the top 10 restaurants in New York by Let’s do New York City. As Grimaldi’s does not take reservations, lines for tables are often long in summertime and extend far up Old Fulton Street.