This iconic Coney Island pizzeria is looking for a new owner
Totonno’s Pizzeria Napolitana opened on Coney Island 100 years ago (no, we’re not exaggerating) and more or less has been operating the same way since then, under the management of a single family.
According to the New York Times, though, things are about to change: the owners are now looking for an investor or buyer to take over the space.
“We’re coming up in age and we don’t have the manpower to continue,” said Louise Ciminieri, a part-owner alongside her sister Antoinette Balzano and brother Frank Balzano, to the outlet.
Although looking to move on, the owners are clear on one thing: prospective buyers will have to agree to continue making the pizza the way it has been on premise since back in 1924, when Totonno’s first opened.
Offering thin crusted pizzas made with imported ingredients from Italy, Totonno’s is one of the very few pizzerie in NYC that still uses a coal oven—a tradition that die-hard fans of the destination hope will continue. It also does so in the same building it has been operating out of since Antonio Pero, an Italian immigrant who worked at Lombardi’s on Spring Street in Manhattan, founded the eatery in 1924.
The pizzeria is clearly part and parcel of the city’s culinary and cultural character, having survived through Hurricane Sandy, the global COVID-19 pandemic (Totonno’s closed in March of 2020 and reopened two years later, now only offering takeout twice a week) and an awful fire in 2009 that forced the eatery shut for about a year.
The legendary destination enjoys die-hard fans that have moved on from the neighborhood as well—including Senator Chuck Schumer, a Brooklyn native.
“In the old days, you stood on line, and when Totonno’s ran out of dough they’d come outside and say, ‘You’ll have to come back another time,'” the politician said to the New York Times. “But it was worth waiting for every minute.”
Although the family seems to be dead set on moving on, a centennial celebration of all that Totonno’s stands for is likely in the works for later this year. We expect to see a whole lot of people there paying their respects.