SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Just a month after we corrected naysayers and pointed out this spot is doing just fine, the final commercial tenants of the residential-retail development on Ocean Avenue and Avenue Z are either open or gearing up to open.

The latest to welcome customers is Voyage Unisex Hair Salon, another in a long line of spiffed-up Sheepshead Bay hair salons offering the works (including manicures, pedicures, waxes and all kinds of stuff I don’t know anything about). To celebrate their grand opening, they’re doing all haircuts for the supremely mediocre price of $15. They’re also hiring, so if you have good hands and a penchant for taking aerosol fumes to the head, give a call.

The other new business, which is not yet open and is only heralded by a cardboard sign in the door, is Chipp Neapolitan Pizza (and thank you, BrooklynQ, for catching this and sending the photo). With two buses stopping in front of the store and no other pizzeria for several blocks, the business should do very well.

Good luck to all the new businesses of the now totally booked development.

Sneaker Corner's old look - Source: Google Maps

Three businesses on and around Nostrand Avenue are fixin’ up the joint, including Brooklyn’s Sneaker Corner, which redid its storefront. The decades old business at 3570 Nostrand Avenue has a new look with a real sign on the way. It’s old sign has been a Sheepshead Bay fixture with a lot of character, so I look forward to see if the new sign will be an improvement to this rather dreary stretch of Nostrand Avenue businesses.

Currently closed for renovations are two Avenue U businesses a few blocks shy of Nostrand Avenue. Pizzeria Del Corso (3003 Avenue U) has been closed since at least last week with a sign in the window informing readers of the work going on inside. No word on when it’ll reopen. Also, Jay & Lloyd’s Kosher Deli at 2718 Avenue U is shuttered for repairs. We’ll let you know when the area’s only kosher-style deli is reopened. I hear good things about this place, but never had the chance to try it. I’ll remedy that when doors are open again.

Photo by Arthur Borko

Calabrese Pizza & Restaurant is slated to begin serving up brick oven pizza at 2224 Avenue U very soon, it seems. The dough-tossers tossed up their signage just a few days ago.

We’re wishing them the best, because it seems like the storefront may be cursed. Remember Tai Yuan? Well, then you’ve got a good memory for short-lived businesses of total insignificance. They occupied the spot for just a few weeks before shutting down in April. And before that was Tai Shan, which lived a little longer, but still didn’t amount to more than a blip on the local gastronomical scene.

Good luck, Calabrese. The area needs some brick ovens, and hopefully you’ll wrangle a name for yourself as one of the few to service the niche. Then again, we also need some Thai…

Located on the border of Sheepshead Bay and Marine Park, Pizzeria Del Corso (3003 Avenue U) is a neighborhood secret waiting to be exposed to the world’s pizza connoisseurs.

Read our take on Pizzeria Del Corso, and owner Nino Coniglio’s unique history.

Margherita slice at Del Corso, courtesy of Jeffrey Tastes

We Brooklynites, we know how to gush about our local pizza places. We have our favorites, and the rest are “just pizza.” For chrissakes, we build entire childhood memories around those special pies that daddy took us to eat. Forget the Thanksgiving Turkey – the pizza pie is the most highly-esteemed family meal on Brooklyn’s table.

That’s why, if you’re a pizza blogger, and you bounce around to foreign neighborhoods – visiting some pizzerias and not others, and declaring some better than others – you’re gonna upset some locals.

Take Jeffrey Tastes, a blogger who’s touring Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and Manhattan, nibbling bites of well-known local establishments. Jeffrey came down to Sheepshead Bay and visited just two pizzerias, kicking off the knee-jerk reaction of, “‘Ey, yo, what the eff?!”

Keep reading and tell us which Sheepshead Bay pizzerias you would include on a local tour.

Those passing by Pizzeria Del Corso on Avenue U and Batchelder Street last weekend may have noticed the restaurant shuttered and a Department of Health notice in the window.

According to owner Nino Coniglio, DOH bungling of his permit, mixed with harassment from an anonymous “tipster,” has cost them around $16,000 in lost business and fines.

Nino explained  that for the past few months some dubious parties have called in false 311 complaints. The complaints ranged from smoking while making pizza, spitting within the restaurant’s food preparation areas, and handling money and then touching the food with bare hands. The Health Department investigated three times in the last few months, first on March 6 and then March 11. No violation points were issued on those two visits, but an expired restaurant permit prompted inspectors to issue a warning.

According to Nino, the restaurant was supposed to receive a new permit earlier this year. But he was required to show for a hearing that fell on the same day as February’s snowstorm. Though the city’s offices were open, they cancelled the hearing and told Nino to wait for a rescheduling. The appointment never came, but eventually he received a fine for nearly $3,000 for failing to show for his hearing. This, of course, isn’t the first time we’ve heard of DOH screwiness costing a local restaurant money.

Del Corso’s reopening was further slowed by the insurance company dragging their feet with some required information. Del Corso was not able to renew the expired document in a timely manner and, on April 13, when the DOH returned to investigate another fake complaint they finally shut down the pizzeria.

After getting a new insurance company over the weekend and passing another required inspection on April 20, which found zero violations, Del Corso is now reopened.

Nino said that in the five days he was closed they lost about $13,000 in business, plus the cost of fines and paperwork. As for the harassing tipster, Nino said he has an idea of who it is, but doesn’t intend to point fingers in public.

Pizza left on sidewalk, E 18 St. (Photo by Ray Johnson)

This pizza and an unknown decoction in an olive jar was seen on the sidewalk on East 18 Street, between Avenue Y and Avenue X.

Leftover pizza for breakfast can be a real treat, but this Thursday morning leftover is no such thing. In Brooklyn, where pizza is practically worshipped, leaving a pie on the streets might be considered blasphemous. But to top it all off, children on their way to school at P.S. 254 were forced to look upon this horrendous sight.

What was it about this pizza pie and its accompanying beverage made the diners leave it for the rats?

Photo by Arthur Borko

C.S.K. Fruit & Vegetables on Gravesend Neck Road and East 14th Street stuck this sign out the other day. Sure, Gravesend Neck Road needs a pizzeria. But, really – a fruit and veggie market? What were they thinking?

Arthur Borko challenged me to try it out and write a review. So I went over around 5 p.m. one day. There were two sweaty slices sitting in a (refrigerated?) case, along with some cheeses and other crap. The owners wanted $2.00 a slice, and said they’d reheat them in a microwave.

Thanks, but no thanks. Here’s a photo of those slices. Your thoughts? Have you been brave enough to try this out?

Photo by Ray Johnson

Sorry Local Broker. Sorry BrooklynQ. Sorry Arthur. I cheated on all of you.

Without a peep to any of you, I slunk off to Totonno’s Pizzeria Napolitano (1524 Neptune Avenue) Friday afternoon – Totonno’s first day open since their fire last March. I went with my brother. Neither of us had been there before.

It. Was. Delish.

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After many a fakeout, Totonno’s is finally reopening on February 10th, according to Slice pizza blog. Totonno’s, which many pizza aficionados agree is one of the best slices in New York (and thus, the world) closed down after a fire devastated the storefront back in March. In September, Slice reported that the famed Coney Island pizzeria would begin welcoming customers again in late-September or early-October. Then it became November. Then December. You can guess where we’re going with this.

Slice wrote the following quick post on their site yesterday:

Our man Ed Levine just got off the phone with Totonno’s owner Lawrence Ciminieri, who tells us that Totonno’s is reopening next Wednesday, February 10 at noon.

Ciminieri says he himself will be making the pies that day.

We’re confident that this is the real deal this time. Ciminieri says he’s got all the permits now and the pizzeria is ready to go.

We hope it’s for real this time. I had planned to go for my first visit right before it burned down, and all this waiting has got me seriously hungry!