For decades, an
enduring slice of life

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

If two Northeast Philly natives play a game of word associations, it might go something like this: Milk . . . cookies. Beer . . . pretzels. Tony’s . . . tomato pie.
Tony’s tomato pies have been a fixture in Mayfair ever since brothers Tony and Dominic Mallamaci first lured customers to their 6300 Frankford Ave. location by handing out free, tempting slices of pie with a thin crust and no cheese more than 55 years ago.
"It’s tomato pie, not pizza," stressed Joe Mallamaci, the second-generation owner of Tony’s Place, last week.
Mallamaci is the son of Dominic. In the very beginning, Tony baked the soon-to-be-legendary pies for customers at his South Philly tavern, while Dominic handled the bar. The brothers moved up to Mayfair in 1951.
These days you usually can find Joe Mallamaci in the back making meatballs, crabcakes, and fresh dough for his Best of Philly pies every day. He went to work in the family business in 1970, after returning from Vietnam and service with the Army airborne.
Tony Mallamaci died the following year. His brother and partner Dominic died five years later, in 1976.
"I think they’d be mildly surprised. We started out with only four sandwiches and two dinners," Mallamaci said of how his father and uncle would likely be pleased with the restaurant’s growth.
While the tomato pie, which has evolved from the original dough-and-sauce to a thin crust topped with cheese and sauce, continues to be the mainstay of Tony’s Place, the menu has expanded and diversified.
The eatery, which Mallamaci describes as a family restaurant/sports bar, has undergone structural expansions twice over the years and now accommodates 210 diners — that’s 141 more than his father and uncle could feed in those early days.
While the economics of business — more competition and a 10-percent liquor tax, among other challenges — have made it harder to earn a buck, Joe Mallamaci remains a believer in the philosophy that as long as you deliver a good product, at a decent price, in a clean facility, you’ll do OK.
His ace in the hole, however, is what he calls his friendly "double-digit" staff, some of whom have been with him for more than 20 years.
"A business doesn’t succeed without good help," Mallamaci said. "I think I have the best staff in the city."
Decades after Tony and Dominic established the foundation for their business, family continues to be a key ingredient of success at Tony’s Place. Mallamaci’s wife, Joanne, has worked behind the scenes all these years. His son Joe came to work for his dad and then opened his own Tony’s Bar and Grill in Ivyland last year. Son Anthony also worked for his dad but went on to college and now is a New York City policeman in Brooklyn.
For Joe Mallamaci, his eatery benefits from a strong core of neighborhood loyalists, just as it did when his father and uncle were making a name for the place more than a half-century ago.
"People who were coming in the 1950s are now the grandparents coming in with their grandkids. Young people moving into the neighborhood are coming in. It’s neighborhood people," Mallamaci said.
People who have moved away or retired to Florida or California or Jim Thorpe, Pa., always come back.
Mayfair native Chip Burnett looks forward to visiting Tony’s Place when he’s back in town.
"I started going there when I was ten and meatball sandwiches were twenty-five cents. They still have the best tomato pie in town," Burnett said by phone from Jim Thorpe.
While Mallamaci can’t even fathom the number of pies that Tony’s has sold over the years, he does know one thing.
"I’d like to be here for fifty-six more years," Mallamaci said. ••
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com