John's of Bleecker Street

Description

John's of Bleecker Street, simply known as John's Pizzeria, is a historic pizzeria located in Manhattan, New York City on Bleecker Street which serves coal fired brick oven pizza prepared in the style of a tomato pie. In 2015, it was considered the 10th highest rated pizzeria in the United States by TripAdvisor.John's is known for its graffiti-carved wooden booths where any patron can carve their name. The pizzeria does not serve slices, only whole pies, and accepted cash only until 2016. John's began accepting credit cards in May of 2016.HistoryJohn's was founded in 1929 by John Sasso, originally located on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village. After losing his lease, he moved the pizzeria to Bleecker Street. The restaurant was later purchased by the Vesce brothers in 1954. In the 1960's Augustine (Chubby) Vesce purchased John's Pizzeria from his brother Joe and he and his wife Rose became the owners of John's until 1980-81. Augustine wasn't well and wanted to take it easy, so he made a deal with Pete Castellotti, whom was managing John's for two or three years to give him 40 percent of his shares if he would run the business for him so that he could retire. A year or two later, Castellotti opened up John's on 65th St., moved to Florida and opened John's of New York in Port Charlotte, leaving his two young kids and Vittoria to run John's of Bleecker St.. His estranged wife Madeline quit her job as a legal secretary and opened a huge John's Pizzeria up in the eighties and the