Joes Tomato Pies, South Clinton Avenue, The Burg

Joes Tomato Pies, South Clinton Avenue, The Burg

From The Local Trenton Newspaper

Michael Simone, owner of Joe's Tomato Pies Restaurant in Trenton,
stands before the ovens in the family owned business that is
closing after nearly 90 years.

The final cut

Pizzeria gone after 90 years

When Michael Simone's cousin, Peter Silvestro, died of a heart
attack at age 40, family members wondered what would
happen to Joe's Tomato Pies Restaurant, their South Clinton
Avenue business. The eatery, which offered the city's first
tomato pie when it opened in 1910, had made it through decades
of tough times with the help of extended family members who
pitched in when needed. Silvestro had envisioned his two young
sons would one day take over the helm, the way he did after the
1989 death of his father, Anthony ''Base'' Silvestro. The dream
seemed unlikely after Peter's sudden death, but Simone thought
he was obligated to help make it come true. He left his job as
an accountant in the corporate world and went back to manage the
restaurant he had scrubbed as a kid in the city's Italian
Chambersburg section. ''I felt I had to step in,'' said Simone,
42. ''I saw this as a chance to give something back to the family.''

THE DEBT was one of gratitude dating back to Simone's youth. His
father died when he was 5, and he and his mother moved in with
Base and his wife, Marie, above the restaurant. Four years later
Simone's mother, Base's sister, died too, and the Silvestros raised
Simone as one of their children. Simone and Base's son Peter,
who were 41 days apart in age, were cousins but bonded as brothers.
The restaurant closed temporarily after Peter died and re-opened
with Simone in charge. But as the pleasant childhood memories of
helping out at Joe's gave way to grueling hours of managing the
restaurant, Simone soon found the job was a lot harder than he
had thought it would be. ''I watched my uncle and I watched
Peter working here, but I did not know the level of intensity
required to run a pizza shop,'' he said. ''I was not used to being
on my feet for 15 hours a day.''
It didn't take Simone long to figure out what was different _
the aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews
who had packed the kitchen and waited tables in years past were
not there anymore. he customers had returned and Joe's was making
money, but not enough for Simone to hire someone he could trust
to help manage the restaurant and allow him to take a break now
and then. 'Uncle Base had seven brothers and sisters, and there
were dozens of family members who worked here,'' Simone said.
''It's not the same today, and without the family help we once
had, I could not sustain the business.''
JOE'S CLOSED Sept. 17, leaving two other popular tomato pie
eateries in Trenton with ties to the first half of the century:
DeLorenzo's Pizza on Hamilton Avenue, owned by Rick DeLorenzo,
and DeLorenzo's Tomato Pies on Hudson Street, owned by one of
his brothers, Chick. (Note from Mack Do not forget Papas Tomato
Pies on Chambers Street). Joe's opened nearly 90 years ago in
what was then Greenberg's bowling alley at the corner of South
Clinton Avenue and Elmer Street, selling pies for as little as
a dime. It was started by Tammaro D'Errico and Pietro Silvestro
and named after Silvestro's oldest son.
After Pietro Silvestro died in 1938, his wife Catherine ran the
business with the help of her eight children. In 1952, Base, the
youngest child, took over the business after he returned from
the Korean War. All sides said the competition for the city's
best tomato pie _ a thinner, crispier type of pizza with fresh
tomatoes and less cheese _ was a friendly one, and the DeLorenzos
are sorry to see Joe's shut down their ovens for good.
Rick DeLorenzo Jr., who works in his father's shop on Hamilton
Avenue, said he sympathizes with Simone and understands clearly
the problem of keeping Joe's open without family help.
''You have to have family support,'' he said. ''There are too many
things that need to be done, and you have to make sure they are
done right. You cannot just bring in strangers to run the
business.'' DELORENZO, 44, remembers gathering with several
relatives in his grandmother's basement to cook and can tomato
sauce for the original restaurant, which his grandfather Pasquale
opened in 1938 at Hudson and Mott streets.
Along with his father, DeLorenzo works side by side with siblings
and cousins, as well as his teenage son and daughter when they help
on weekends. ''We all worked here at one time or another growing up,
and I decided to stay,'' he said. ''And if my kids decide they want
to work here, there will be a spot for them and they will be able
to make a living.'' Marie Silvestro, Base's widow, said she is too
saddened by the closing of Joe's to discuss it at length. For more
than 45 years, she has lived in the apartment above the restaurant,
but now awakens without the lingering smell of garlic and other
seasonings from the previous night's dinner fare downstairs.
She married Base Silvestro a year after she began working at Joe's
as a 21- year-old waitress in 1952.''I went there for a job and I
fell in love,'' she said. ''I will miss everybody. We were friends
with our customers.'' Loyal patrons speak of the closing as they
would a family death. Anthony Russo was born in the house next
door to the restaurant in 1922, worked as a waiter there in the
late 1930s, and dined at Joe's twice a week for decades with his
wife, Emma. ''She would have the macaroni and I would have pizza
mostly, but sometimes the fish,'' said Russo, 76. ''I really miss
it. In fact, if it were open, we would probably go there tonight.
All of the neighbors would be there.
''THERE HAVE always been a lot of pizza places in Chambersburg ,
but this one was the original for tomato pies. Their pies were so
delicious. They were the best in the city, at least I think so,
and I bet a lot of other people would agree with that.''
Eighty-four-year-old Mildred LaFerrara said some of her earliest
memories are eating at Joe's with her family. The closing leaves
a void in her Saturday routine after Mass at St. Joachim's Church o
n Bayard Street. She and four other widows would regularly make
the short walk down Monsignor Cordelia Alley from the church,
the same narrow route cars were forced to sneak along to make it
to the drive-through lane that Base installed in the 1950s.
''Joe's wasn't just a pizza shop,'' LaFerrara said. ''It was
always very professional and refined.''
It's been a month since the last call for dinner was given at
Joe's, but the eggplant special is still posted as the special
of the day, and notes and numbers for call-in orders are still
on the pad by the phone. Several folded cardboard pizza boxes are
stacked in the corner waiting to be used.
Simone has been returning on weekends to start putting things away
and preparing for the shop to be sold. He agonizes over his decision,
wondering what more he could have done to make things work out.
''After four generations, I had to be the one to close it down,''
Simone said. ''This place is in my blood, it's where I was raised.
I thought I could do it. I feel good about what I was able to
accomplish, but it's still heartbreaking.