Slice - slice.seriouseats.com

Here, There, and Everywhere

Posted by Adam Kuban, October 22, 2003 at 7:14 PM

Lombardi's gets a quick mention in the October 23–30, 2003 issue of Time Out New York. In that magazine's "It Happened Here!" sectionette, cleverly subhedded "The Life of Pie," Katherine Pushkar writes:

For many New Yorkers, "eating in" actually means take-out Chinese or a large pie. Finding the first lo mein merchant is like eating soup with chopsticks, but pinpointing the first pizza purveyor's spot is a cinch. Genarro Lombardi opened his grocery at 53½ Spring Street in 1897, and by 1905 he'd gotten a restaurant license, giving the city and the nation its first pizza parlor. At some point, the original site lost its fraction and became 53 Spring Street. After Lombardi's moved down the street to No. 32, where Genarro's descendants continue to dole out slices of heaven, it ultimately became a bar, Gatsby's, which serves up paradise of a different sort.

Nice rundown on the city's—and the country's—first pizza parlor, but really: "slices of heaven"? The Slice editorial board doesn't think Lombardi's lives up to its hype. And isn't Time Out the same magazine that pronounced Lombardi's overrated earlier this year?

1 Comment

Tags: Coal-Oven, Lombardi's, Manhattan, NoLIta, NYC, Pizza History, SoHo