Eater spoke with Gary Bimonte of Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (originally of New Haven, CT). If you are a pizza fanatic who swears by Pepe’s pies (we are and we do!), it’s required reading. Some key points: the current expansion to eight restaurants was spurred on by the fact that Frank Pepe has seven grandchildren, and one store won’t support seven families. They hope to open a new store every 18 months, reaching a total of 20-30 restaurants in the northeast (not, in our view, the “massive expansion” of the Eater headline, but significant). They’ll focus on college towns, with three to five total in the Boston region.
