By Linda Taaffe

Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too! celebrates 45 years

The D’Ambrosio family

Brothers Don, Nick, Frank and John D’Ambrosio, who own and operate the neighborhood pizza house, have continued their father’s traditional methods, hand-tossing the pizza crusts.

“We feature authentic Italian pie … Don’t look for yuppie pizza here,” they warn customers.

The restaurant has an open kitchen where customers can watch the cooks hand-toss the pizza dough and prepare entire meals - a tradition that seems to attract a crowd of loyal customers who don’t mind lining up along El Camino Real to wait for a table.

In a 1997 readers poll in Metro Magazine, locals voted Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too! the best pizzeria in Mountain View. The pizzeria is the site where employee Barry O’Halloran earned a reputation for being the world champion in pizza dough tossing. The honor secured him an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

In addition to pizza, the restaurant features traditional southern-Italian dishes, such as veal parmigiana, osso buco and chicken cacciatore.

Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too! was the second restaurant in what is now the D’Ambrosio brothers’ restaurant dynasty. The D’Ambrosios also own and operate Giorgio’s Italian Food & Pizzeria, Nicolino’s Garden Cafe and four Frankie pizzerias throughout the Bay Area.

Early beginnings

When talking about good pizza, most people think about Italy, New York or Chicago - but what about Mountain View? The town was largely responsible for introducing pizza to much of California during a time when the Italian pie was virtually unknown throughout the country. El Camino Real housed what locals claim was the first and only pizzeria between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 1947.

The pizza business has continued in the same brick building ever since. Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too!, which took over the original pizzeria operation nine years after it opened, celebrated its 45th anniversary this summer.

The D’Ambrosio family’s pizza career began in 1957 on El Camino Real, when Frank D’Ambrosio Sr., his brother John and his friend Luigi took over the area’s first pizzeria from Rocky D’Augustino, an orphan from New Haven, Conn., who’d moved out West to seek his fortune.

Upon arriving in the Bay Area, D’Augustino discovered that his neighborhood staple, pizza, didn’t exist in his new hometown. He rented the town’s former pharmacy building and started the area’s first pizzeria. After nine years of business, D’Augustino decided it was time to move to San Francisco.

D’Ambrosio, who delivered his homemade sausage to D’Augustino on a weekly basis, was looking for a business opportunity. The two fellow Italians and New Haven natives struck a deal.

D’Ambrosio opened Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too! that July. D’Ambrosio continued to operate and own the business until 1968. The restaurant changed hands a few more times, but his sons eventually bought it back in 1972.

Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too!, located at 939 W. El Camino Real in Mountain View, is open 11 a.m. to midnight, Monday through Friday; noon to 1 a.m., Saturday; and noon to 11 p.m., Sunday. For more information, call 967-5384.