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La Margherita
La Margherita opened in Medford in 1991, and the family that runs it has built its entire identity around a specific technical claim: it was Long Island's first wood-burning brick oven pizzeria, introducing a cooking method to the region that's since become far more common but that had no established local template when La Margherita first fired up its oven more than three decades ago. That original wood-burning oven has stayed in continuous use since 1991 rather than being replaced by a more convenient modern alternative. Being first with a technique this labor-intensive carries real operational weight — a wood-burning brick oven requires constant attention to fuel, temperature, and airflow in a way gas and electric ovens simply don't, and running one as a restaurant's primary cooking method for over three decades without switching to something easier is itself a sustained commitment few competitors have matched. The 12-inch pizzas that come out of it are built simply and traditionally: fresh, house-made mozzarella, fresh tomato sauce, basil, and olive oil, letting the oven's high, wood-fed heat do most of the actual work rather than relying on elaborate toppings to carry the dish. La Margherita has stayed a family-owned restaurant across what the family itself describes as three generations, a span that covers the entire history of the wood-burning oven's operation — the same oven that opened the restaurant in 1991 has effectively been passed down and maintained across that multi-generational ownership, rather than being installed once and left to a rotating cast of hired kitchen staff. That consistency has been recognized outside the family, too — Newsday has ranked La Margherita among its Top 10 Brick Oven Pizza spots on Long Island, a distinction earned in a category the restaurant itself effectively helped establish locally more than three decades earlier. Being both the historical first mover in wood-fired pizza on the Island and a restaurant still competitive enough to make current best-of rankings is a harder combination to sustain than either distinction alone. Keeping the pizzas to a straightforward, four-ingredient build — fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, basil, and olive oil, at a modest 12-inch size — is itself a technical choice that puts the burden squarely on the oven and the dough rather than on elaborate toppings, which is exactly the kind of unforgiving format that would expose any inconsistency in a wood-burning setup run for over three decades without a break. For a Long Island pizza list, La Margherita is the essential "the original wood-fired oven" entry — a three-generation, family-run Medford pizzeria that introduced wood-burning brick-oven pizza to Long Island in 1991 and has kept that same original oven running ever since.
VS
Amore Pizzeria
Richard Graffeo, a Brooklyn native, spent years working at four separate pizza places alongside his uncle across Long Island before deciding it was time to put down roots of his own. He bought a storefront in Bay Shore on December 13, 1991, and exactly one month later, on January 13, 1992, opened it as Amore Pizzeria — a name chosen as a direct nod to his uncle's own restaurants, which had operated under the name "Pizzeria Amore." The recipe Graffeo brought to Union Boulevard has stayed essentially unchanged since that January 1992 opening — a genuinely rare claim for a pizzeria to make honestly after more than three decades in business, where recipe drift, cost-cutting substitutions, and ownership changes tend to erode even well-loved originals over time. Graffeo opened Amore with his wife and two young sons at his side, and the restaurant has stayed a family operation through the decades since, which is a meaningful part of why the recipe has held steady rather than been quietly adjusted for margin. Local coverage has tracked that consistency at genuine milestones rather than treating it as a one-time story — Greater Long Island profiled the restaurant's 25th anniversary in Bay Shore, and Patch later covered its 31st year in business under the headline "Everything We Had," a phrase that captures how directly Graffeo has described his own investment in the restaurant since buying that storefront in 1991. Few Long Island pizzerias get two separate rounds of anniversary press coverage from local outlets years apart, and fewer still earn it for staying essentially the same restaurant throughout. That the pizza recipe traces to Graffeo's own apprenticeship years working alongside his uncle, rather than to formal culinary training or a franchise system, gives Amore a direct, single-family lineage that's stayed intact since before the restaurant even had its own address — Graffeo learned the technique at his uncle's pizzerias first, and only opened his own place once he'd fully internalized it, rather than improvising a recipe from scratch on day one. The exact one-month gap between buying the storefront in December 1991 and opening in January 1992 suggests a founder who moved decisively once he'd made the decision to go out on his own, after years of working at someone else's restaurants first — a pattern of patient apprenticeship followed by a fast, committed launch that's held up as the defining shape of Graffeo's whole career in the business. For a Long Island pizza list, Amore Pizzeria is the essential "unchanged recipe, three-plus decades running" entry — a Bay Shore pizzeria Richard Graffeo opened in January 1992 with a recipe learned directly from his uncle's own pizzerias, still run by the same family and still, by the restaurant's own account, unchanged since it opened.
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