Florida Family-Owned Pizza Joint Celebrates 70 Years

For Roxanne and Rennie Pascarella, owners of Frankie’s pizza on Bird Road, Miami, memories are everywhere – in the streets, in the kitchen, in the sauce and in the smiles of customers walking in the same pie they ordered For decades.

Frank Pascarella of Steubenville, Ohio, opened his wife Doreen with Frankie 70 years ago – their late father is everywhere.

Roxanne remembers when she was a toddler, she kept her protectively in a clean trash can inside the restaurant, keeping her away from the dangers of hot pizza pots and other kitchens.

“He gave me pads and pencils and said, ‘I’ll order.’ “That was the playpen at the time.”

Lenny is four years younger, and remembers his father paying five dollars to cut a 50-pound bag of onion. “I thought it was a big deal,” she says.

She also remembers looking out the restaurant window with him and seeing the horse sucking up Bird Road.

“It’s now a seven-lane highway,” she muses the ever-busy streets. “We were looking at cow pastures. The changes are amazing. But our business remained the same.”

Of course, there were minor changes. However, Frankie’s pizza, which opened on Valentine’s Day in 1955 and just celebrated 70 years of celebration by offering the ultimate comfort food to the Miami generation, remains largely unchanged (but riding a horse is no longer the case). (Maybe it’s not the best idea).

70 years is an astounding milestone in any city, but it is particularly noteworthy in the vast, changing Miami. The cow pasture gave way to concrete, but the long-standing Westchester along Bird Road, arbetter hot dogs that opened in 1959 and a relative newcomer tropical Chinese who opened in 1984. Along with the area’s restaurant neighbors, Franky is a reminder. The different Miamis were smaller, quieter, and incredibly difficult, but quaint.

“Everyone knew,” recalls Roxanne.

Photo Gallery: Did Westchester look like that? Shopping, horse trucks and restaurants

Enchanted by Miami during his holiday and soon moved there, Elder Pascalellas opened his first incarnation of a restaurant near the University of Miami. Two years later, in 1957, they moved to their current location, taking over the former grocery store and served crunchy, almost focaccia-like square slices that became famous on Bird Road.

To this day, the menu hasn’t spread beyond pizza and garlic knots, some weird desserts, but Rennie has added that Mike’s hot honey-like addition was gushing into the pie, and her dad I admit that it was a problem for him.

“He would have been lying in his grave with some of these toppings.

Family has long been the cornerstone of business. When Frank Pascarella suffered a stroke in 1980, his daughters intervened. Roxanne held back the fort and Rennie graduated from Florida State University in Tallahassee. But there weren’t many questions they wanted to continue in business.

“One thing we knew when we took over was that Franky was his first baby and his first love,” says Roxanne. “I was his second child. Rennie was his third. We knew we would continue doing it.”

Their father slowly recovered, and eventually returned to the restaurant, where they were faster than those who used the two with one hand, making the pizza box faster. The family survived everything from the incredible growth of their neighbours to the winds of Hurricane Andrew, leaning against their father’s unstoppable work ethic.

“When I looked back, it was stressful,” admits Roxanne. “But we just got to work together. “Okay, we don’t have the power. Let’s get a generator.” “We can work, gas so we can work.” I have an oven.’ We improvised. When life threw curveballs at us, we scooped them up and continued on. ”

“He was a good leader. If I burn pizza, he would say, ‘Next time you get it right,'” says Lenny.

Pasquarella grew up eating Frankie’s pizza and continued to inspire the book “Love with Frankie’s Pizza” by local historian Cesar Becerra, who gathered anecdotes about restaurants (in the shop and at the freerangepublishing.com/frankies). You can purchase it.).

“Robert is Here: Looking East Throughout Your Life” Becerra, who filmed a documentary about Pascarella about the popular Homestead Fruit Stand, calls Frankie’s pizza “the end of old Miami.”

“In cities with constant change, there are few places like this,” says the Miami native. “It’s proof that you do things the right way. They could have taken a million different shortcuts, but they’re not. The cheese is grated by hand – they’ve grated I was able to buy some cheese. It takes 9 hours to prepare the first pizza! Plus, when you’re there, once there was a tomato field on one side and the Everglades on the other is wild I know that.”

Pasquarella’s restaurant and his love for the community ran deeply. When he passed away in 2005, three years after his wife, Renee told the Miami Herald: In 2010, Bird Road, from 89th to 92nd Avenue, was renamed “Pasquarella Way” in honor of the man who ousted his third child out of business.

“He was a riot,” Becerra said. “He was just as funny as hell.”

Now in the 60s, Roxanne and Renee Pasquarella are considering this milestone anniversary, sharing memories with longtime customers and considering business involvement. Roxanne’s son Christopher Patterson shows interest in taking over at some point. “I was excited to see him do it, so I retreated and let him solve the problem,” says Lenny, but neither of them are completely ready to let go.

However, taking a break here and there sounds charming.

“What’s really interesting is that people always want to buy our property,” says Lenny. “I don’t want to sit at home and eat bonbons all day. But as I get older, I’ve learned to balance my life. Now someone is interested in overseeing things. So I sometimes go to the key for a few days. Something I would never have had before.”

She recalls a slow shift at Frankie, dressed up, perfume, and set off to go out with friends.

“I’m lined up to get to the club at 2am and someone says, ‘I smell pizza,'” she says. “I wanted to die. You’re so embarrassing in your 20s. But I was able to spend a lot of time with my family here. I’m grateful for that. We’re in the unit We were four of us. You’re so lucky when you have a business like this.”

Franky’s pizza

Location: 9118 Bird Road, Miami

Opening hours: Tuesdays to 11pm to 10pm. Closed on Monday

More information: www.frankiespizzamenu.com or (305) 221-0221