Tony Gemignani of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana is soft opening his latest pet project this Wednesday, ~TONY’S COAL-FIRED PIZZA & SLICE HOUSE~ in the former Palermo Delicatessen/La Spiaggia location (the grand opening is Friday). It’s a tiny space with mostly take-out items only, but it’s going to have quite the list o’ options: coal-fired pizzas (yup, the only ones in NorCal—an original 15” tomato pie is $15, and a white pie with clam and garlic will be available on Fridays and Saturdays for $23), there’s New York-style pizza by the slice ($3.50 for plain cheese), Sicilian by the square ($3 for cheese), and Romana pizza by the meter (1/4 meter is $8), which you can customize with three ingredients (your pick).
And I haven’t even gotten to the sandwiches: there will be Chicago-style Italian beef sandwiches (like the one I got at Al’s), seven kinds in all, with beef that has been slow roasted with rosemary, garlic, and oregano in the coal-fired oven. Or you can get a calzone, or a stromboli, and there will be baked ziti in the winter (which would be now, ahem). And then there’s the New York deli list of sandwiches, ranging from capicollo grinders to a chicken parm wedge to pastrami on rye. You can also order your own combo, with meats that will be sliced on an Italian hand-cranked slicer—and the pastrami, corned beef, and rosemary turkey are all made in-house. (Hey, I’m just happy to see a place with caciocavallo cheese as an option, mamma mia.) Lastly, there are chocolate egg cream sodas (using Fox’s U Bet and Seltzer Sisters soda) and Gino’s Italian ices (lemon or cherry).
Now, I don’t know how many people it’s going to take to get these slices and sandwiches out the door quickly enough so it doesn’t turn into another Ike’s—I guess all will be revealed. But Tony does have a dedicated walk-in for pizza dough (for both restaurants), so at least he knows he’s gotta make a lot of dough! Closed Mon-Tue, open Wed-Sun 12pm-11pm.
