Half Hour
"What’s unique about this place is, we’re one of the original by-the-slice. Up until 1950, you could only get pies, whole pies. By the ‘50s, the second wave of Italians came to the United States after WWII. There were a lot of Italians looking for work. Of course, the reason they came here is for work...the economy was booming. There was a lot of factories and a lot of industries in Brooklyn. People used to pack lunch, and take it with them in lunch boxes and brown paper bags.
So...catering to the factory workers and the longshoreman and whatever, people had a half hour for lunch. Things were good...people didn’t have to bag lunch. They would go out and buy lunch. So one guy had the idea: “Why must you always get a whole pie, why not just a slice?” Around ‘53 to ‘57 is when by-the-slice came around and we’re number three on that list. You can come here, you don’t have to get a whole pie, you just get a slice and go back to work."