A lot of places put the sauce on first, then the cheese.
We put the cheese on first, but it keeps everything down, pies don't bubble as much.
Sometimes you see a lot of bubbly pies.
Some people use flour on the bottom of pies, some people use corn meal. We use bread crumbs.
That's our biggest thing. You know, it cooks it nice and crispy.
You know, it started as like just a regular neighborhood bar, guys from the docks,
and local people just came in, sat at the bar, got something to eat.
The guys would come from work, get a drink. Families would meet. They'd have dinner.
And it just grew from that and I've seen people come in, dating that were like 18,
that are coming in with their grand kids now, so it's just a generation thing.
My father, Dominic De Marco, he founded Di Fara in 1965.
He’s Mr. De Marco and he had a partner at the time whose last name was Farina.
So they took the 2 names, and that’s how the name Di Fara came about.
My father grew up as a farmer, and so he always, you know,
he grew his own tomatoes, he’s always done thing, was freshest ingredients
He just kept going and once you do something, you become good at it
and you keep doing it, you become great at it,
And if you continue to do it, you become extraordinary at it.
Pizza has so many different languages now. Some people call it cheese pizza,
Some people call it regular, Napoli Don and Margherita.
So that language is used for our regular pizza,
which is 2 cheeses, San Marzano tomatoes, which is the best tomato that you can find.
When it comes out of the oven, we snip fresh basil on it,
and then we drizzle olive oil around the crust.
A lot of people describe it as, when you come in here, it’s like
you’re going to your grandma’s house for dinner.
That’s how it feels for us too. Like we’re hosting family every single day.
Lombardi’s was formed in the late 1800s,
as a grocery store on Spring Street, in Little Italy.
At some point, they started selling tomato pies.
Became so popular, that around 1905 is when they changed it over
into a full-fledged pizzeria, and the American pizzeria pretty much was born at that point.
The signature pizza would be the Margherita, as it’s known.
It’s an original pizza, which is a Neapolitan, thin crust, round pizza.
That’s our number 1 seller, and basically, our original pie.
You know, I think the secret in the food business is quality products.
When you start with quality, quality comes out the other end.
After all these years in New York City, we opened up a 2nd location.
We haven’t even, because there’s so much demand there, we haven’t even added
additional items to the menu, because we can’t.
So now with the new location, we’re able to cater a little more
and have a few more things on the menu.
But still, we don’t go too crazy.
So we’re not just living on our laurels like a lot of businesses
that might be old, they live on the fact of their reputation.
But we, we deliver the goods.
All our pies are cooked in a pan, with the exception of our personal pies, which are rolled out with a rolling pin.
Extremely thin--pita bread thin. It's kind of an oxymoron, it's pan pizza but it's thin crust, but just the way we do it,
weird.
They're cooked in a pan for the majority of the time and then they're bricked to finish them off.
So they're taken out of the pan, laid on the brick.
Rizzo's was opened in 1959 by my father, Joe Rizzo, his brother, Sal and their brother-in-law.
Sal left the business after a short while, as did Hugo. And my father wound up keeping the store.
And they were unique. I don't think pizza had a specific identity at the time. Most guys were making it
as they knew it from the old country.
And this was just the way my father did it. And luckily people liked it.
I know my father was,
always grateful for, I'm sorry I get choked up, he was grateful for every customer that came through the door.
Because he knew they could go anywhere else.
I never tell my customers it's good. If I get a first-timer in here and he asks me "How is it, is it good?"
I say it's up to you, it's different. You decide if it's good or not, because it's really up to you.
Louie & Ernie's started off in Harlem in the 1950s, moved up here in 1959.
And me and my brother used to work for them, and then we took it over in 1987.
We only specialize in pizza and calzones, so we don't do dinner, sandwiches, don't do delivery.
So I think that makes us more family-oriented. People come in here, they sit down, they talk to you,
They have a few drinks, a beer, or so, or wine, and they enjoy their stay here.
Well, we get the dough, we spread it all out, then we put our sauce on and we add a little seasoning,
grated cheese, black pepper, basil if you like, put our cheese on and then we put the sausage,
which it's crumbled, we just pick it out. It's de-cased and we put it on the pie and then we cook it at 600 degrees.
We don't have no secret ingredient, that's one thing we don't fool around with.
We just, it's a simple product, and it's a very tasteful product.
You know, this is family, we'll know your name. If you come back more and more often,
we get to know your name and that's how we become friendly with all of our customers.