Grimaldi's Pizzeria

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Sometimes it's not a long wait

Grimaldi's Pizzeria is a popular pizzeria franchise in the New York City area. The original and most famous of these locations is located under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn on Old Fulton Street. It does not sell slices; only whole pies. The pizzas are made using a coal-fired brick oven.

1 History
2 Notoriety
3 Other locations
4 External links

[edit] History

Patsy Grimaldi, the founder of Grimaldi's, learned to make pizza at his uncle Patsy Lancieri's pizzeria in 1941 at age ten. He eventually opened his own restaurant, Patsy's Pizzeria, in Brooklyn. Grimaldi originally planned to build it in Manhattan. However, he believed that coal-fired brick ovens produced the best pizza, and it was illegal to build new coal ovens in Manhattan. As a result, he moved to the current location at South Ferry, Brooklyn. Eventually, Grimaldi sold the naming rights to a corporation and had to change the name of his restaurant to Grimaldi's.

[edit] Notoriety

Grimaldi's Pizzeria is one of the most popular in New York City. In recent years, Zagat Survey has rated Grimaldi's No. 1 Pizzeria in New York [1]. It was named one of the top 10 value restaurants in New York by Let's do New York City [2]. As Grimaldi's does not take reservations, lines for tables are often long in summertime and extend far up Old Fulton Street.
On the Law & Order episode "Tabula Rasa," detectives Briscoe and Curtis investigate a suspect who claims he has never been in New York before, and find that he often attends Grimaldi's alone. Briscoe and Curtis are later seen in Grimaldi's eating pizza there [3]. An earlier episode, "Point of View", sees Briscoe and Logan eating at Grimaldi's.
Grimaldi's Pizzeria was chosen as one of the five best pizzaerias in United States by the Food Network. Their pizza was featured on the television show The Best of....[4].

[edit] Other locations

Patsy Grimaldi and his business partner, Sean McHugh, opened a second location in Hoboken, New Jersey. The Hoboken location was named Best Pizza in Hoboken in a Zagat Survey in 2005.

The son of the current owner of the Brooklyn location opened a Grimaldi's in Garden City, New York. Another son opened up a separate chain of restaurants named "Patsy Grimaldi's" in Scottsdale, Arizona and Chandler, Arizona. While separately owned and operated under a different name, the "Patsy Grimaldi's" pizzerias use the same recipe and ingredients, were opened with Patsy's help, and are marketed as if they were part of the original Grimaldi's franchise. There is also a Grimaldi's in Las Vegas, Nevada and, as of January 2008, in the Uptown area of Dallas, Texas.