Eddie’s Pizza has been a local institution in New Hyde Park with its trademark individual bar pies since the 1930s.
When you walk into the Hillside Avenue eatery, it feels like entering a time warp with posters from “Casablanca” and “Rebel Without A Cause” and a jukebox playing tunes from the ‘50s and ‘60s – for free.
That old-time feel is something owner Joseph DiVittorio has sought to maintain. And on the face of it, nothing seems to have changed in Eddie’s, like the thin-crust on the pizza that local connoisseurs regularly come to chow down on. But the cheese on the pizza is part-skim and the trademark “bar pizza” is a literal one.
“There are generations of families who come in here. You change little by little, but you try to keep the atmosphere the same. People like familiarity,” DiVittorio said.
DiVittorio, 48, made a major change in his life when he bought into the business in the mid-1980s, making a transition from his job as a certified public accountant with Deloitte Touche. Since then, he and his father, Nick, have managed the business together, with one recent departure from tradition.
Last spring, Eddie’s Pizza launched a Web site along with another new business vehicle in the form of an Eddie’s Pizza truck that has its Manhattan hot spots posted online daily (www.EddiesPizza.com). The truck carries the same fresh part-skim cheese and dough – made at a separate Hillside Avenue location near the restaurant – and makes those same bar pies on the fly, as it were. They have regular locations Monday through Saturday in Manhattan. And Eddie’s Pizza also uses the truck to cater everything from corporate parties to weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, according to DiVittorio.
“Until we got into it, you wouldn’t believe it,” he said.
But the main objective was bringing pizza to the masses in Manhattan. And the very visible bright red truck is a high- profile promotion vehicle.
“We wanted to go into the city. There’s a big sub-culture of food trucks,” he said, noting that Zagat’s now has ratings for traveling food vans that he said fits the lifestyle of young Manhattanites on the move.
“People are in a hurry these days. They don’t want to sit and dine,” he said.
Meanwhile, Eddie’s Pizza is spreading its reputation by express mail around the globe, having shipped its pies as far away as China and Hawaii. (One local resident regularly sends pies to a New Hyde Park expatriate in the Aloha State).
“The beauty is the way the pie is thin and light. It ships everywhere,” DiVittorio said.
DiVittorio said he sends pizzas to the cast and crew of HBO’s “Entourage” in Los Angeles, a thank-you to his friend Steve Levinson, the executive producer of the HBO series who he worked with at Deloitte Touche. Eddie’s Pizza gets mentions on the show and the actors sometimes wear the restaurant’s T-shirt.
Back at Eddie’s, DiVittorio’s idea is to keep the winning formula in place: a comfortable place with good food – including daily pasta dish specials – at prices that encourage customers visiting frequently.
“We don’t want to see customers once a month. We want to see them once a week,” he said.
He’s also sensitive to the downward economic trend of the times in catering to his customers’ needs.
“People don’t have much in discretionary dollars,” he said. “So when they go out, they want to hit a home run.”
With $5 pasta fagioli and $8.80 bar pies, they can economize, and watch home runs on the flat screen TVs behind the bar, in another sign of changing times.
DiVittorio also demonstrates a sense of civic responsibility commensurate with the iconic status of the restaurant, regularly making donations to local schools and institutions.
Eddie’s Pizza was involved with the Harry Chapin Food Bank, donating 200 meals a month. And it donated a movie room with a big screen TV to the Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation.
“Our biggest asset here is our customers and our community,” DiVittorio said.
