What could be a classic pizza war is about to start brewing down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass! Last week we learned that the legendary Grimaldi's was moving around the corner from its longtime DUMBO space after a rent dispute with its landlord. The next day the Post talked to the landlord, who revealed he was keeping the restaurant's coal oven and promised a "very popular pizza establishment" would be moving in. Damn but he wasn't lying! Turns out that no less than 80-year-old pizza king Patsy Grimaldi is returning to the Brooklyn pizzeria where he made his name!
Thankfully for easily confused pizza fans (if less so for litigious lawyers), the new place will be called neither Grimaldi's or Patsy's. Instead the new pizzeria, opening in March 2012, will be named Juliana's after Grimaldi's late mother. So far this morning we've been unable to reach anyone at the restaurant Grimaldi's for comment, but the news of Juliana's has to be something of a shock: In 1998 Patsy Grimaldi sold his pizzeria to its current owner Frank Ciolli and apparently really regretted it. "A year after I sold Grimaldi’s, I was very sorry," the pizzaiolo told The Post. So when [landlord] Mr. Waxman called me and asked if I wanted to come back, I thought I was dreaming. I couldn’t say 'yes' fast enough."
For those keeping track at home, a brief history: When Patsy Grimaldi first opened his DUMBO restaurant in 1990 he called it Patsy's, after his uncle Patsy Lancieri’s East Harlem pizzeria where he had worked growing up. He was forced to change the restaurant's name to Grimaldi's in 1995 after new owners took the East Harlem pizzeria and name.
The current Grimaldi's restaurant should be operating (with an oven of unknown type) at its new digs at 1 Front Street on November 29.
