The original, smaller location changed hands a few times in its history, but in the late 1970s Pepe's daughters Elizabeth and Serafina bought back the Spot. In 1937, Pepe bought the building next door and opened a bigger, brighter pizzeria. That's when Filomena suggested Frank sell only to patrons who came into his bakery, and when the bakery became known as the Spot. He started selling to workers on the streets, but Pepe began to lose track of who had paid him and who hadn't. From there, he would bake apizzas (the two original offerings were tomatoes with grated cheese, garlic, oregano, and olive oil, and one apizza with anchovy) and load them onto a hand cart which he'd push around the neighborhood. His namesake, Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, is the oldest pizza parlor in New Haven, Connecticut, and some people - actually, a lot of people - say it's the best.Īfter a stint in the Italian army during World War I, Pepe married Filomena Volpi in 1919, and in 1925, he opened a bakery - not a pizza parlor - at 163 Wooster Street in New Haven. Frank Pepe, born in the town of Maiori just southwest of Naples, was one of those immigrants: He came to the U.S.

They call it apizza, which is pronounced, roughly, a-beets - from an old dialect once found among descendants of immigrants from the Amalfi coast circa the early 20th century - and they guard their recipes like family secrets. If you've never had New Haven-style pizza, the thing to know about it is that the people who still make it have been making it for a very long time.

Frank pepe new haven