Yet in Naples Florida you'd be lucky to find one Pizza Place...they have Tommy Bahama's Restaurant...

Years ago there was this chain out here in Utah called "Peter Piper Pizza." Great stuff!

Get the fuck out of here with that .

I guess that's what I get for breaking your balls with the Jennifer Lopez post the other night .

We have some good independent pizza joints out here in Canada as well.

Is there a large Italian presence in Buffalo?

Your never Gunna beat a NYC Pizza Margarita , forget about it

Wait a second... Ivy lives in Utah, he should be covering the Mormons, not the Mobsters, lol. Ha..

Never heard that one before.

So what's your go-to spot for pie in Throgs Neck. Lot's of good choices. I'm a Bronx guy and my favorite place closed.

See, I told you, SC.... Ivy knows that It's all fun and games. He's all right!

Probably. They sell their wings nationwide, but not the pizzas.

I seriously doubt that it's even the best pizzeria in the Buffalo area, which has a substantial Italian-American population. If La Nova is the "best" there than they're setting the bar a bit low. It's better than Papa John's and shit like that, but it's noticeably inferior to the best independent pizzerias anywhere. I've had better even in Columbus, a town has about as many Italians as the moon.

And I have little doubt that being the nerve center of a mafia family was helpful back when that family was powerful (which it was up through the late 90s or so).



Yeah there's a lot of them, but I think they are all out in the suburbs now, with very few remaining in the core city (can't say I blame them).

Louie and Ernie's is great but that's not really Throggs Neck anymore it's north a bit on Crosby

We can expand the search to Throgs Neck area. I used to go to a place in Country Club but it closed and is now under new owners and isn't as good. Villa Barone across from the Pelham stop is good, but I feel I go there for the Heineken more than the Pizza!

Louie and Ernie's is great but not something I can get every week. A little pricey and the cheese is great, but sort of a delicacy in that it's so heavy!

I sent you a pm, SharpieOne. Just click on the red and white flashing icon up top.

But yeah, Tony the Kid is right. It's Louie and Ernie's, hands down, even though that's technically Pelham Bay. Their white clam pie actually cures impotence. I've, uhm, heard .

We have 2great pizza places here run by guys from jersey.Scottish was great closed down now.and fresco is my buddy phils place.its funny him and his fam speak italian so dam fast it sounds like gibberish its crazy.ask him about the mafia and he always says there's no such thing lol

Where do you live, Tommy?

Lot of pizza talk - that's my kind of language. I can talk pizza all day lol. I'm very familiar with Buffalo and Rochester areas, have family up there, and the pizza is great. There are a ton of Italians in those areas and a ton of mom & pop pizza joints and red checkerboard restaurants that in my opinion, can rival NYC places. I heard from some Rochester residents that they have more pizza places there per capita than anywhere else in the country. The pizza up there is not like Chicago Deep Dish - its more like NYC pizza just slightly thicker. It's all personal preference at the end of the day.

I agree with pizzaboy (no pun intended) that Chicago style isn't, in my opinion, really considered pizza. They have something similar upstate in Utica called "tomato pie" - they're like Sicilian style squares with very sweet sauce and no mozz - just grated Romano. That's very good too, especially cold.

In NYC I prefer the original Patsy's, Gino's on E. 83rd, and Totonnos. The relatively new place Artichoke is great too; guys from Staten Island started it on E.14th like 5 years ago and now they have 3 locations. All of the locations got lines out the door no matter what time of day. It's great. Nothing beats original Patsy's on 118th though. Still can get a large for $11.

You can say that again. I pretty much grew up in that place .

I second the opinions that Chicago style isn't a "real" pizza pie.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's not a pizza pie. Pizza cake, maybe.

munchies, best pizza, by vice...

If you want to read about the Buffalo NY mafia, the Buffalo Police has a site called Buffalo police then and now. Go to:
bpdthenandnow.com and go to the Mob section. There is some good info on there and crime stories.

Buffalo does not have tons of great entertainment such as theatres Etc like NYC or Chicago so when folks in Buffalo go out, they likely go out to eat. There is a heavy Italian population there and they are demanding, so as a result, the eateries in Buffalo are as good or better than most big cities. I have eaten at LaNova man times and their food is fantastic, but they have a ton of competition in the area. I would put Buffalo's pizza up against NYC or Chicago any time

Buffalo can't compete with Chicago and NYC pizza

has the contruction industry cleaned up in WNY?

Pretty much.

Just because the deep dish pizza is a Chicago creation, there are plenty of pizza joints in Chicago that serve pizza the way they do it back in Italy. I travel quite a bit and when I'm in Chicago I go here.......

http://pizzeriadanella.com/home

Mob Has Colorful History
By Mike Hudson
March 5, 2013


The history of the Buffalo mob is replete with colorful characters: stool pigeons and stand up guys, goodfellas and goombahs, hitmen and high rollers.

With the deaths in recent months of reputed organized crime kingpins Joe Todaro and Sonny Nicoletti, the very future of the outfit known from New York to Las Vegas as “the Arm” would seem to be in doubt, but a legion of mob buffs – students and aficionados not unlike those preoccupied with the minutiae of the American Civil War – guarantee that the legacy of our own private mafia will continue well into the future.

While any discussion of the topic locally must necessarily begin and end with the man most responsible for it, Stefano Magaddino – a stone killer and astute businessman who liked to eliminate competition before it even became competition – there have been plenty of others who added their own pinches of zest and spice to the cacciatore we’ve come to know and love.

Moe Dalitz was born in Boston but became a member of the “Cleveland Syndicate” during the Prohibition years and formed what was known as the “Little Jewish Navy” to ferry brand name booze across Lake Erie for consumption by thirsty consumers in Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo.

His Hebrew heritage gave him a natural in with guys like Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, and soon he was partnering with Magaddino to offload Sam Bronfman’s Seagram’s products at obscure docks and quays from Youngstown to Silver Lake.

Dalitz used his bootlegging profits to open several nightclubs in Cleveland, and was the first to hire a young man by the name of Lew Wasserman, who would later become the impresario in charge of the Hollywood mega media conglomerate MCA.

His show business connections provided the basis for Dalitz to invest in Las Vegas during its formative years, and he variously owned the Desert Inn and the Stardust Resort & Casino while building the Las Vegas Country Club and the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

Like his old friend Magaddino, Dalitz died peacefully of natural causes – in Las Vegas in 1989. He was mourned by the likes of Barbara Walters, Sen. Harry Reid, Suzanne Somers, Wayne Newton, Buddy Hackett and Frank Sinatra, who Dalitz always claimed to have given his first big break in show business.

Another Clevelander with Buffalo connections was Aladena “Jimmy the Weasel” Fratianno, who turned government informant after being charged in the murder of Irish crime lord Danny Greene. Fratianno had briefly headed up the Los Angeles mob, working with the Magaddino family overseeing its Las Vegas interests.

“I don’t let stress bother me,” he said following an assassination attempt in 1987. “I think that’s very important in a man’s life, in anybody’s life. Stress will age you quicker than anything. And I just try to take it easy.”

Another Buffalo rat who became as well-known as his more upstanding colleagues was Ron Fino, who turned rat in 1969 at the tender age of 23. The son of crime boss Joe Fino – who also served as business manager for Laborers Local 210 in Buffalo – Ron Fino liked the shadowy world of undercover operations so much he began working for the CIA, running undercover stings against the Russian mafia, befriending Soviet oligarch Vladimir Putin and finally working in the Middle East, tracking down al Qaeda terrorists.

The newspapers called Frank “Butchie Bifocals” BiFulco the “Renaissance Man” of Buffalo’s organized crime family – alluding to his reputation as an inventor, entrepreneur and accomplished chess player. But the FBI alleged BiFulco to be a hardened killer, a capo in the Magaddino organization and a prime target of its organized crime task force.

BiFulco, now 68, was sentenced in 2003 to 10 years and 10 months in federal prison for doing a favor for a friend of a friend — setting fire to a leased car two summers earlier.

The sentence — 10 years of which was mandatory under a federal law forbidding the use of arson in criminal schemes — angered friends and supporters.

His attorney, Anthony J. Lana, said BiFulco was unfairly targeted by FBI agents and federal prosecutors who — in Lana’s view — were frustrated by their inability to convict him in previous cases.

Jurors convicted BiFulco of helping Betty Tata torch her leased 1998 Nissan Altima in August 2001 in the parking lot of the Walden Galleria Mall, apparently unaware of the video surveillance cameras now deployed in the parking lots of trendy malls and convenience stores nationwide.

According to the feds, BiFulco was a capo and overseer of Buffalo’s West Side and the labor and union rackets for the Magaddino family.

The feds tried to charge him with everything from ordering the murder of a low level drug dealer who might or might not have been involved in the killing of BiFulco’s step-son, Carmen Gallo, to involvement in penny ante-telemarketing fraud.

Later, law enforcement attempted to convict BiFulco on assault charges stemming from an argument he had with his wife, Cecilia “Sisi” BiFulco, over the death of her son.

BiFulco must be added to the FBI’s reputed mix that already includes Leonard Falzone and Bobby Panaro as possible future Buffalo kingpins.

But kingpins of what, exactly? When Magaddino died in 1974, there was still something worth arguing about. Between his death and Todaro’s reported emergence as boss a decade later, the FBI says 15 mob members and associates were clipped.

But that was long before Native American casino gambling, widespread off-track betting and the emergence of Black and Hispanic dope dealers robbed “the Arm” of many of its most lucrative profit centers.

The days when a guy like John Montana could serve as the Magaddino family’s consigliore, run the largest fleet of taxicabs in Western New York and hold a senior elected position on Buffalo’s Common Council are over.

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/Stories/2013/Mar5/MobHistory.html

I remember the telemarketer scams on Hertel in 1980's. Did anyone ever get convicted for that?

Yes,as well as Niagara Falls,Toronto,and in the entirety of the Niagara Peninsula,which lies between Buffalo and Toronto.

If you're ever in Rhode island you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you don't go to Casertas pizza. I've lived in 9 states, traveled extensively and was stationed in Italy for two years and i swear Casertas is the best pizza I've ever had.