On 61st Street since 1994
Our story
One room, one family, two ovens and about thirty years. Nothing here has been rebranded, relaunched or reimagined.
How it started, which is not a dramatic story
Sal Provenzano took the lease on 37-32 61st Street in the spring of 1994 with a second-hand gas deck oven, his mother's sauce, and enough money to last about seven months. Nina ran the counter from the first day. There was no concept and no business plan, and the shop looked like every other pizzeria in Queens because that is what it was.
For the first two years it made a pizza that was fine. Then in 1996 Sal started leaving the dough in the cold room overnight instead of making it the same morning, then for two nights, and the pizza stopped being fine. It also cost more to make, needed a cold room that had been full of other things, and meant guessing on Wednesday how busy Friday would be. For about a year that was straightforwardly a bad decision. Then people started coming from Sunnyside.
That is the whole of the origin story and we are not going to inflate it. Somebody made a slower, more expensive dough than the shop next door and enough people noticed.
Four things that actually changed
Thirty years, briefly
1994 — the lease
One deck oven, twelve seats, and a menu of cheese, pepperoni and Sicilian. Rosa arrived in 1998 and the rolls started on the back bench that autumn.
1996 — the dough went cold
Two days instead of two hours. The single change that made this a shop people travel to, and the one that nearly did not survive its first year.
2009 — the room was rebuilt
Twenty-eight seats, the counter along the window, and the second deck oven. Elena joined that year and has mixed every dough since.
2016 — the coal oven
Marco spent four years arguing for a 900°F brick oven in a New York slice shop. He was right, and the Italian half of the menu is his.
Why this website is written the way it is
Most restaurant websites are written to make you hungry and to close the sale. This one has a page explaining that our gluten-free crust is not safe for coeliac disease, a page saying pizza is not health food, and a slice-counter page admitting that the slice on the rack came out of the oven twenty minutes ago.
Nina wrote most of that, and her argument is simple: everything on those pages is something we would tell you at the counter if you asked, so putting it on the website only removes the need to ask. A shop that would say a thing to your face and not put it in writing has noticed the difference and is trading on it.
It also means the things we do claim can be taken at face value. The dough really is forty-eight hours. The vegetables really are roasted every morning. The cheese really is shredded here. We are not asking you to take those on trust from a business that also tells you a Tuesday-afternoon slice is fresh from the oven.
Nobody has voted us anything. We hold no certification from any Neapolitan pizza association, we have won no award, we appear in no guide, and we have not been voted anything by anybody. There are no customer reviews or star ratings on this website, because a rating you cannot trace to a real diner is decoration. We name no supplier's brand either: we tell you what an ingredient is, not whose label is on the box.
Six people
Who is here
Sal Provenzano
Owner and head pizzaiolo
Opens the dough at six, works the oven through both rushes, and will not let a pie leave pale.
Nina Provenzano
Owner, front of house and catering
Takes the catering orders, and will tell you plainly when a date is already full.
Marco Riccio
Pizzaiolo, the Neapolitan oven
Runs the 900°F oven, keeps the fire, and built the Italian side of the menu.
Twelve to fifteen minutes, and worth the wait
Order a pie
Telephone the shop and we will tell you honestly how long the kitchen is running before you commit to anything. Collection is always quicker than delivery and the pizza is always better for it. If you are ordering for a crowd, the catering page has the trays and the notice we need.