- April 18, 2024
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By: Brent Woronoff
Joey Carbone grew up in the pizza business. Joey’s father opened his first pizzeria in Long Island in 1972, two years before Joey was born. Joey followed his parents to South Florida in 1996 and opened up his own restaurant in Coconut Creek, north of Fort Lauderdale, in 2016.
Late last year, at the behest of a childhood friend, Joey and his wife Maria moved to Palm Coast and opened up La Pizza Nostra in Old Kings Commons, 7 Old Kings Road, taking over the former Bruno’s Pizza.
“I took over an existing business,” said Joey, who opened for business on Dec. 7. “I didn’t do any advertising in the beginning. I just wanted to get accustomed to the place, get a good feel for it. We just recently started advertising a little. The word’s been getting out on the Nextdoor app, and it just started taking off. It’s been busy.”
La Pizza Nostra is billed as the “Home of the Grandma Pizza,” a Long Island original. “The Grandma” is so named because it is reminiscent of the homemade pizzas Italian grandmas baked without a pizza oven.
It’s a rectangular pan pizza similar to a Sicilian pizza but with a thinner, crispier crust, topped with mozzarella, fresh marinara sauce, olive oil, oregano and Romano cheese.
“It’s a tasty sauce,” Joey said. “You take the first bite and you’re like, wow. It’s got a sweetness to the sauce. It’s a plum tomato sauce.”
It’s quickly become La Pizza Nostra’s top seller, but the menu is extensive and includes much more than pizza.
“We have everything from garlic knots to zeppoles,” Maria said.
That includes appetizers such as fried mozzarella sticks and fried calamari. Pizza pops: chicken, sausage or pepperoni with sauce and cheese wrapped in pizza dough. Pepperoni and spinach pinwheels. Entrees such as chicken or eggplant Parmesan, ravioli, manicotti, stuffed shells and lasagna.
Salads, chicken wings, calzones and strombolis, hot and cold subs and wraps. Desserts include cannolis, cheesecake and zeppoles – an Italian version of doughnut holes sprinkled with powdered sugar.
“We have a lot of things that people love and remember, that a lot of people don’t have around here,” Maria said. “We just find that they do come in here for specific things: Grandma pizza and the zeppoles. We’re huge on the zeppoles.”
Joey and Maria have been together for 28 years and have been married for 25. From Day 1 they have been in the restaurant business together.
“Ever since the day that I met him I stopped my career to help him and here I am,” Maria said.
La Pizza Nostra is open six days a week. It is closed on Sundays. They have online ordering through Uber Eats and DoorDash and also have their own delivery drivers. Joey makes the pizzas. They have also retained a cook, Kelly Force, who worked at Bruno’s.
“The food is good,” Force said. “They’ve had these recipes for generations. They’re really good people. Everybody works as hard as they can and it’s really paying off.”
Said Joey: “My father always told me, ‘We’ve got good food, we’re good people and we’ll make it anywhere.’ ”
