"I don’t want to sit at home and eat bonbons all day."
For Roxanne and Renee Pasquarella, owners of Frankie’s Pizza on Bird Road in Miami, the memories are everywhere — on the street, in the kitchen, in the sauce and in the smiles of customers who walk out with the same pies they’ve been ordering for decades.
Their late father — Frank Pasquarella from Steubenville, Ohio, who opened Frankie’s with his wife Doreen 70 years ago — is everywhere, too.
Roxanne remembers him depositing her protectively into a clean garbage can inside the restaurant when she was a toddler, keeping her away from hot pizza pans and other kitchen dangers.
There have been small alterations, of course. But Frankie’s Pizza, which opened on Valentine’s Day in 1955 and has just celebrated 70 years of serving the ultimate comfort food to generations of Miamians, remains largely unchanged (riding up on a horse might not be the best idea anymore, though).
Seventy years is a stunning milestone in any city, but it’s especially notable in ever-changing, sprawling Miami, which all too often values flash over community.
Read more at the Miami Herald