After the Violence, Business as Usual at Lucali

When there is pizza, they will come.

“It’s a 45-minute wait,” the hostess says into the phone, a mere ten minutes after unlocking the door at 6 p.m. to escort the first few customers in.

And "Good Friday" it was as birds chirped and foodies conversed happily on the outdoor benches. While some leaned up against the parked cars on Henry Street, others took walks around the block to kill time. With each passing minute though, more and more grumbling stomachs lined up to put their names down.

45 minute wait? Big deal. Lucali had been closed until Wednesday night after, and its fan base was foaming at the mouth for pizza pies and calzones.    

Paul DeFontes, a fifty-year Henry Street resident who eats at Lucali every Friday and Saturday night, thinks it's worth the wait.  

“As long as he’s been open, I’ve been coming,” DeFontes says, referring to Iacono. “I was really surprised to hear what happened to him. He’s such a quiet, nice guy.  When you’re a good customer, like me, they take good care of you.”

DeFontes saw Iacono on Thursday and said that he was “feeling great."  

Typical reactions to the Smith Street knife fight that made headline news all week ranged from feelings of shock to feelings of disgust. 

Caitlin Heikkila, the blog writer behind BecomingBKLYN, waited to eat with family who were visiting from Greenland, New Hampshire.

“I saw the news in the Post and it was definitely shocking… but I still wanted to eat the pizza,” Heikkila sweetly admits.

But one hungry customer, a man who’s been living on Degraw Street his whole life, was quick to point out that “these things happened a lot more a long time ago.” 

In fact, many locals argue that most newcomers, post-gentrification, don’t have a real sense of the history that once defined South Brooklyn. This was a gritty, working class neighborhood teeming with seafarers, factory workers, longshoremen, union organizers and organized crime before the condos went up and the family storefronts came down.  

“Don’t tell anyone, but we’re hipsters from Williamsburg,” whispered a group of friends who had come out to celebrate a birthday. “Lucali is our favorite pizza spot, and we don’t scare easily.”