John C. Ensslin

NorthJersey

Pizza is so popular and pervasive in North Jersey that it’s hard to imagine a time when it was not on our collective regional menu.

But relative to other foods, pizza is not all that old a tradition and as a business, pizza restaurants didn’t really take root in Bergen County until after World War II.

One of the oldest continuously operating restaurants serving pizza in Bergen County is the New Park Tavern in East Rutherford, where the Italiano family has been serving up pizza pies since 1934. Not far behind them is Kinchley’s Tavern in Ramsey, which opened in 1937 but didn’t begin serving pizza until 1947. That’s not so surprising when you consider that the first reference to pizza anywhere in America in generally thought to have occurred when the word was mentioned in the Boston Journal.

Yet pizza as a meal is much older than that.

According to Carol Helstosky, a University of Denver professor and author of a 2008 book called Pizza – A Global History, the precursor to today’s pizza began in Naples as far back as the 18th century and perhaps earlier. Helstosky says pizza back then was an inexpensive street food of flatbread baked with toppings and sold by the pound.

The oldest family-run pizza restaurant still operating in New Jersey is Papa’s Tomato Pies which opened in 1912 in Trenton and today continues in Robbinsville.

“Naples was a very large city with very poor neighborhoods and most of the people who lived in the city didn’t have kitchen facilities so there was a long tradition of street food," she says, "and pizza was a very important part of that."

The meal was especially popular among soldiers and sailors, the latter of whom gave rise to the term “pizza marinara,” says Helstosky.

But for many years it was a meal that was very specific to Naples and not found elsewhere in Italy, she says. When millions of Italians began immigrating to the United State between 1890 and 1920, the immigrants from Naples brought that tradition with them and attempted to recreate their cuisine in America.

That’s what Joseph Italiano tried to do when his opened the original Park Tavern inside what had been a hotel in East Rutherford. “My father-in-law [Joseph] opened up the restaurant the day my husband [John] his son, was born, Feb. 14...Valentine’s Day,” Loretta Italiano says. “So, it’s like a big occasion here.” The tavern marks the anniversary each year by serving heart shaped pizzas. Loretta’s son, Rick Italiano, owns the restaurant today and his son, Nick, works there as a bartender.

When ask about the secret of their pizza success, Rick Italiano says they use homemade dough and sauce from the original family recipe. “We never changed it. We just kept it the way it was. You always keep a good thing going,” he says. “It’s how my grandfather used to do it. We just kept going on and on. He taught my father and my father taught me.”

Kinchley’s has had three owners since it opened in 1937, but like the Park Tavern, its owners stuck with the original recipe, says owner George Margolis, whose father bought the business in 1986.

Mrs. Kinchley is generally credited with having come up with the idea of serving pizza in 1947. What led her to do so is still a bit of a mystery, Margolis says. But the results are no mystery.

“It’s what makes this business go round,” Margolis says. “The pizza has everybody coming back. It’s really what we’re famous for. It’s amazing how many longtime customers we have coming here for years and years and years.”

Kinchley’s serves pizza on an almost wafer thin crust. Margolis considers it a classic bar style New Jersey pizza.

Whatever the style though, New Jersey pizza’s appeal is enduring. Just ask pizza historian Helstosky, who lived for about eight years in New Brunswick while getting her PhD.

While she’s done many other history research projects, Helstosky says her pizza book is the one that continues to generate the most calls and interest. “It’s been an ongoing side project of mine for many years because there’s so many people who love to talk about the history of pizza,” she says. “And I do too.”

More on pizza

Craving that crispy crust?:North Jersey's best thin-crust pies

Want some egg or calamari on that slice?:12 of the craziest pizza toppings in North Jersey and where to get them

Made the old-fashioned way:North Jersey's 8 best old-school pizza places