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Juliana's
Juliana's opened in December 2012 in DUMBO, Brooklyn, founded by Patsy Grimaldi, who came out of retirement at age 80 to open it — a genuinely unusual restaurant-industry comeback, in the exact building he'd previously run as the original Grimaldi's Pizzeria before selling that brand name and its franchise rights in 1998. Grimaldi named the new restaurant Juliana's after his mother, Maria "Juliana" Lancieri Grimaldi, a personal tribute built into the business's identity from day one. The opening itself was delayed by legal disputes with the Grimaldi's brand he'd sold years earlier, pushing what was originally planned as a March 2012 debut back to that December — a reminder that even a beloved, retired pizzaiolo returning to his own old kitchen wasn't a simple, uncomplicated homecoming. That legal tangle aside, Juliana's gave Grimaldi a chance to return to the same coal-fired oven and DUMBO storefront where he'd already built one legendary pizza reputation, effectively competing directly with the brand carrying his own former name a few doors down — a genuinely strange dynamic that's become part of the neighborhood's pizza lore, with regulars debating which of the two is actually closer to the "real" Grimaldi's pizza. For a New York pizza list, Juliana's is the essential "the founder's actual comeback" entry — an 80-year-old pizzaiolo returning to his own original kitchen to make the case, in person, that he never needed the name he'd sold to make the pizza that made it famous.
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Joe's Pizza
Joe's Pizza opened in 1975 in Greenwich Village, founded by Pino "Joe" Pozzuoli, an Italian immigrant from Naples, built around exactly the kind of no-frills, classic New York slice format that's become harder to find well-executed as the city's pizza scene has diversified into wood-fired Neapolitan spots and Sicilian squares. The restaurant briefly closed in 2005 before reopening, a genuine scare for a shop that had, by that point, already spent three decades building a reputation as one of the most reliable classic slices in Manhattan. New York Times critic Pete Wells later described Joe's as one of the reference points other "neoclassical slice-shop owners" specifically cite when they talk about emulating old-school New York pizza — a direct acknowledgment from a serious food critic that Joe's isn't just old, it's the standard newer places are trying to live up to. That reputation has held up specifically because Joe's hasn't chased trends — no elaborate topping combinations, no wood-fired Neapolitan pivot, just a well-executed, foldable New York slice sold fast out of a small Carmine Street storefront, the same basic format the shop opened with in 1975. For a New York pizza list, Joe's Pizza is the essential "the standard other places measure themselves against" entry — a fifty-year-old Greenwich Village slice shop that professional critics point to specifically when they want to describe what a serious classic New York slice is supposed to taste like.
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