totonno's destroyed by fire

[david sprague]

report on channel 7 news. oven caught fire this am.... place gutted. owners unsure of reopening.

damn.

[TBird]

noooooooooooooooooooo :-(

[Tay]

Wow! I was just there on Fri! Ironically, my friends, having never been there before, were a bit taken back by it's shabby exterior.
Very sad news. I hope everyone is ok.

[porker]

Its with a heavy hand that I write this...
We occasionally make the 6 hour drive to NYC on various pilgrimmages. Sometimes its street food, sometimes BBQ (yeah I know...NYC? But the BBQ block party saves me quite a bit of driving around, plus Daisy Mae, Virgils, Blue Smoke, etc etc), or dive bars, or whatever.

Sometimes its Pizza and Totonno's is still on the "to do" list.....

Probably has its supporters and dejectors, I might have found it to be the best pie I've ever tasted or only so-so, but like other places, an institution and a 'must try'.
Sigh.

I often say that you gotta try the restos on the 'to do' list, otherwise they may be gone tomorrow, for whatever reasons. #-(
Shit...

[Tay]

I'm sure they'll rebuild

[david sprague]

i bet they will too.

certainly hope so.

my best wishes to the family.

[gafferx]

How is business there? Arson?

[david sprague]

lines out the door...waits in the grimaldi realm, if not the difara....doubt that there was any problem there.

[gafferx]

You are correct. I jumped the gun on that

[Get In My Belly]

ny1 is saying the plan to reopen within 6 weeks.

[son of a butcher]

The place was a great room for nostalgia. When I entered Totonno and saw relics of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the end of World War II, etc, I felt that it was a living piece of Americana. The pizza was very good, the attitude was Brooklyn all the way, and we will all miss it.

[HypeKiller]

Totonno's is great dispite the revelation that it is run by Republicans. Nevertheless I hope they rebuild soon and am glad everyone was all right. I actually prefer there white pie to the regular the matron of the restaurant once claimed to me that the white pie was created here. Do any of you hounds have any information supporting or disputing this claim? For the record I must state that there are several pizzerias in the city better then Totonnos.

[david sprague]

i'm afraid that if you asked for poitical affiliation beforehand, you'd miss at least 50 percent of the world's great chow -- or at least nyc's. chances are, just about all eastern european, most south asian and a goodly number of east asian proprietors would identify as republican. fwiw.

and i agree with you about the white pie. not sure who created it, but the totonno version is/was doggone good.

[NYJewboy]

They had their day, and it was much better in the 70's.

[stuartlafonda]

Looks like everything will be fine and the front room, with all that nostalgia will be as good as ever. I can't wait to make my annual summer trip to the aquarium, Nathan's and Totonno's.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/

[racer x]

I'm sorry the owners and workers have to put up with the headaches of dealing with this disaster.

But as for the food and the service, good riddance, I say.

[stuartlafonda]

Wow, with all the horrible pizza in NYC you don't think they ranked in the top 10%? Just about all street corner pizzarias are terrible, with lousy, cheap Cisco products they make pizza with no care or pride. Sure the old lady was a pain but they used quality ingredients, a coal oven and cared about the pizza, and it showed in the taste of the final product.

[NYJewboy]

The old lady was a pain, and was rude to my wife. They also often didn't put much attention into what they did.

But when they were on that oven rocked. I have had many memorable pies there, and more than a few clunkers.

[hiddenboston]

Some info for those who haven't read this yet:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/nyr...

[dhs]

I sure do hope they rebuild. I feel it would be a major loss if that was the end for Coney Island Totonnos. Hopefully they won't loose too much of the famous character (infamous) in the process. Best of luck to them.

[MShapiro]

Like everyone I’m glad no one was hurt but wonder:

- Since they have to rebuild it probably from scratch, how will a new oven affect their pizza? I know the owner said it will be the exact same pizza but it sounds like the bricks were severely damaged and what else would she say?

- Will the DOB, DOH, etc. still let them use a coal oven in light of what happened? Besides utilities and major industry 99.9% of businesses no longer use coal (FYI, NYC Board of Ed used to be one of the largest municipal agencies using coal until a few years back). You would think that the city would think twice about letting them do this again.

[KTinNYC]

From what I've read (on Gawker, I believe) the brick oven needs to be rebricked but apparently this is done ever few years any way so it's not something very unusual for them.

[MShapiro]

Have you ever seen what a live 2.5” fire hose can do? Pointing a few bricks is one thing, but it sounds like they received extensive damage and have to redo most if not the entire oven and not just some loose mortar. Regardless, I hope they open soon.

[squid kun]

Latest word is mid-July ... http://lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/2...

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Totonno's Pizzeria Napolitano
1524 Neptune Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11224

[Jack_]

Thanks for the update

[danmarinophoto]

Still not open and we are close to saying Totonno's is down for a full year. There seems to be pretty good progress in driving by and I have heard the wood is off the doors so that is promising. Perhaps to be safe we say no later than March 2010?

this is my photo shoot I did there for my personal interests back in Feb 2009 - > http://danmarinophoto.com/pizza