Juliana's Pizza
Patsy Grimaldi opened this shop on the site of his own first pizzeria and called it after his mother. The Grimaldi's next door carries his old name and belongs to somebody else. Both have traded ever since.
Why go
Grimaldi worked in his family's pizzeria, Patsy's, up in East Harlem. He and his wife Carol built their own room in Brooklyn in 1990. For that shop he commissioned the first coal oven built in New York in more than fifty years. A lawsuit over the name made him rename it Grimaldi's in 1995. Four years later he sold the business and the naming rights to Frank Ciolli, who moved the shop after a dispute with the landlord.
Grimaldi died on 13 February 2025, aged 93. Juliana's has kept his table empty since.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a whole pie, and eat it there.
- Avoid: the wrong storefront. Read the sign before you sit down.
What locals & experts say
- Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana, on Grimaldi, quoted by Eater NY in February 2025:
He was truly an artist and paved the path for all the elevated pizza shops of today.
1 - Erika Adams, reporting for Eater NY: Grimaldi is largely credited with sparking the wave of modern pizza shops that is now a basic part of the city's pizza scene.1
Good to know
- Getting in: no bookings and one Brooklyn door. The kitchen shuts for a stretch mid-afternoon.
- Closed: Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
- The pies ship nationwide through Goldbelly if you cannot get to Brooklyn.
Verdict
could-visit — Go on a weekday and take somebody with you. I haven't found a recent tasting note on this kitchen, so I would order the plain one and judge it myself.