close
close
orange

Santillo’s Brick Oven Pizza in Elizabeth NJ will be rebuilt

Vaseline

3 minutes reading

This hasn’t been a good year for pizza maker Al Santillo.

The bad luck for the owner of Elizabeth’s legendary Santillo’s Brick Oven Pizza, a must-stop for many in New Jersey, began on January 6 when his business burned down.

From then on, his luck continued to go downhill, until recently he finally started to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

The fire destroyed his business on January 6, and the water used by firefighters trying to save it severely damaged his precious brick oven.

Things got worse in April when Santillo was hospitalized with a stomach infection. He said a fish bone probably perforated his small intestine and it became infected. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Santillo was rushed to the East Orange Veterans Administration Medical Center, where he underwent surgery.

Things looked bleak and his prognosis was not good, he said.

“I was gone for I don’t know how long,” Santillo said in a telephone interview.

He is slowly recovering since emergency surgery, but has not yet been released from hospital.

It was risky for a while, Santillo said, adding that he was taken to the Lyons VA Medical Center in Basking Ridge. He said he expects to make a full recovery.

“They say it’s a miracle,” he said. “I think fifty years of hard work has made me stronger.”

Santillo said he is hopeful that within a month of completing the physical therapy regimen, he will be out of the hospital and can tackle rebuilding his business.

The road to rebuilding Santillo’s Brick Oven Pizza

Santillo had no fire insurance for his business. He said he couldn’t get the insurance because of the age of the building. He was advised to set aside money for such an emergency. He said yes, but reconstruction will be very expensive.

He has already paid for the demolition of the fire-damaged portions of the building at 639 South Broad Street, Elizabeth. He now also has to rebuild the brick oven. He said some of the old one still stands, but that’s not enough.

His luck isn’t all bad, as he has many friends willing to lend a hand.

More: Jersey Pizza Group has 100,000 members and wants to compete against the best pizza restaurants in New York

A Facebook group with 1,200 members called “Santillo’s Volunteers” has pledged to help raise money and whatever else he needs to get him back to work.

He has also received a pledge of help from Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who gave the pizza a high rating of 8.3 as part of the One Bite pizza rating system. On the day of the fire, Portnoy’s social media post read: “I am aware that Al Santillos Brick Oven Pizza had a fire this morning. Thank God Al is okay. The bar stool will be there for whatever Al needs .”

A fundraiser to help Santillo rebuild is in the works, involving the New York Jets and the New Jersey Devils.

“I need all the help I can get,” Santillo said.

It is not yet clear how much the reconstruction will cost. Santillo said he doesn’t have a handle on the number yet, but it’s in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rebuilding the old brick oven, which Santillo calls his Sistine Chapel and his pizza-making colleagues call the cathedral, will cost a lot, he said.

Santillo worked with Duddy’s Construction of Springfield to repair and rebuild the furnace. repairing,

The stones are soaked, he said. Some need to be replaced and others can be saved by baking the water out.

More: Clifton has found a way to reduce student stress and is doubling down on the program

There is no timeline yet for the repairs, Santillo said. The hospital stay threw a spanner in the works.

Santillo’s history

Santillo’s was founded in 1918 by Lou Santillo, who delivered bread by horse and cart, according to the restaurant’s website. Lou’s son Alfred, Al’s father, added pizza to the menu in 1944. The family opened the current location in 1957.

That same year, Santillo’s father purchased the 100-year-old brick oven with a barrel arch for $10,000. The 5 meter wide and 3 meter deep oven can accommodate up to 30 pizzas, has a shallow roof to keep the heat in and is heated by a gas jet.

Over the years, Santillo’s has made pizza for celebrities, including Vincent Vaughn and most famously Jay Leno, who hung out at the pizzeria in his youth.

Al Santillo took over the family business in the 1980s, but has almost 60 years of experience and has been working in the kitchen since he was five.

Now that his luck is starting to turn for the better, Santillo said he hopes to gather all the estimates and form a plan to reopen his legendary pizzeria.

Related Posts