Brooklyn Pizza Politics

Like any version of it, Brooklyn Pizza Politics is complicated, robust and has the potential to split families and blocks the same way Sal and Alfredo used to split pies up with their pizza slicers.

Today’s tale focuses around the duo of Leo and Joe, formerly of Leo&Joe’s Pizzeria, on 3rd Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets. I don’t know much about Joe, except that he is Italian and supposedly created and controls the recipe for the pizza that they made there. Leo, I knew from childhood, though he’s a few years older than me. Leo was always the neighborhood guy. He knew everyone, well. He was friendly, knowledgeable and had the hottest girlfriend I had ever seen when I was in elementary school.

The combination of the two into their own shop seemed like a match made in heaven. It tasted that way too. Within a few weeks of their opening, many pizza lovers I knew had switched. Nino’s (formerly the duo’s employer), Pizza Wagon and Sal’s all lost customers to the new pizza shop that had opened in the place of the old and dying pizza shop, whose name I shutter to mention here (mainly because I don’t remember).

Things seemed well for the fledging shop. When I returned from Japan for Christmas visits, I found the shop to be in good business health and spoken of well. My family even catered a few small events from the shop. Life was good. Until this year.

With the duo’s lease about to expire, the building owner asked to enter into the business as a partner. Actually, it was more of a threat, that if he wasn’t allowed into the business he would pull the lease and effectively end Leo&Joe’s. The pair refused, the lease was pulled and the shop closed down.

A few months later, a new shop opened in its place, Buono Gusto Pizza. Diehard Leo&Joe’s lovers boycotted the establishment in droves, angry over the new owner’s treatment of the previous tenants. Still, after a while, the new shop’s combination of awesome pizza and a spotless shiny new dining room had won them over. As for me, I never really was interested in entering the Pizza Cold War that was brewing in Bay Ridge, but I refrained from crossing the imaginary picket lines, until I received the okay from my local representative (okay, okay, I accidentally went there once because I was in a hurray, sorry!).

Leo and Joe, themselves, seem to be fine. Leo became a partner in Casa Calamari on 86th Street and 3rd Avenue, although a current rumor states that he was in the process of leaving before the demise of the shop, where he is currently a partner. Casa Calamari, unlike most pizzerias in Bay Ridge (with the exception of Vesuvio, on 3rd Avenue between 73rd and 74th, which expanded into a restaurant a few years ago before Casa opened), offers a full Italian restaurant menu in addition to the pizza shop functions. Joe, who was most responsible for the flavor, has moved to Verrazano Pizza on the corner 4th Avenue and 91st Street, amid much fanfare and a huge window sign that blocks out all of the sun. But it could be down by now, that shop is a little out of my way.

So what does this story teach us? Ummm… I’ll get back to you.



Wisdom of the Day: Don’t blame their oil olive good looks.