If you have a delicate disposition, please do yourself a favor and don’t come here during the dinner rush hour leading into a weekend. The absolute chaos of sprinting workers, banging oven doors and the constant swirl of customers at the counter, drivers getting paid out and pies being slung is beyond anything I’ve ever seen apart from a busy Saturday or Sunday morning at Hot Bagels Abroad.
And yet… And yet, there is this dude at the center of it all — and if I knew his name I would give him some sort of medal — who somehow directs every teen cashier, pizza cooking veteran, driver and customer alike with such good humor and aplomb that I almost can’t believe it. He’s constantly switching between English and Spanish and directing air traffic like a happy general in the middle of an absolute tornado of wackiness. There have been times where I’ve almost forgotten to order, I’m so mesmerized by his calmness in the crazy Friday night storm. You’d think — based on the sheer amount of business this place is handling — that there is not a single other pizza joint in the town of Verona or surrounding areas. Which I know to not be true. But am at a loss as to why this place is always so crazy. Though, even in the craziness, all the workers and customers are incredibly polite — even the nice lady I once interacted with in the Punisher t-shirt with something aggressively political spelled out in semi-automatic firearms.
Now, you can be a normal person and order your pizzas from home and have them delivered. And, weirdly, we don’t generally even order pies from this place. We go in to get dough. Just dough. Sitting in the same mall as a Kings Supermarket — a store that is incredibly overpriced and very sparsely patronized — we get all the pizza fixins and walk the few doors down to get the base from Anthony Francos. Which never disappoints. There’s something about making your own pizza that gives everyone their own bespoke pie with their chosen amount of sauce (Hipster Jr. Jr. has has a barely-there approach), the amount of cheese (I tend to be a little heavy-handed) and with or without pepperoni (Hipster Jr. will eat it straight from the package, but puts none on his pizza) that makes for a more fun, interactive experience. And, sure, you can buy a bag of dough from your local market or get some sort of disgusting wheat-based thing from Whole Foods, but we know Anthony Francos makes a good dough, charges around five bucks per large pie and we get a tasty and consistent experience.
Now, I will address what I always address when it comes to restaurant names. Because I can’t help myself. Should this place not be called Anthony Franco’s? You know, with the apostrophe? Also, is the place called Anthony Francos Pizza, or Anthony Francos Pizzeria & Ristorante? Or even Anthony Francos Pizzeria, which is how they rep themselves on Instagram? Or just Anthony Francos – Verona, which is their handle on Facebook? There looks to be eight or so Anthony Francos locations, but on their joint website I see the name referred to in several different ways, including on one banner as Anthony Francos Restaurant & Pizza. I don’t ask much, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask a business to know and be consistent with their name. And, yes, this has absolutely no impact on the food, but I’m just handing out this free marketing advice as a matter of course. Know your band name. Know your restaurant name. And always, always remember your possessives and that an apostrophe doesn’t make something plural.
303 Pompton Ave. – Verona
973/857-2400
afpizza.com
