Episode 3: Nino Coniglio (Restaurateur) – The Best of New Jersey Podcast

Amanda Morrison: Welcome to the Best of New Jersey podcast presented by BestOfNJ.com. The podcast that celebrates New Jersey’s most influential figures and the communities that shape them. Big names, real talk, real Jersey. I’m your host, Amanda Morrison, the influencer behind Don’t Sit Home.

Amanda Morrison: Today’s guest is Nino Coniglio, champion pizza maker behind Coniglio’s Old Fashioned in Morristown and more. Welcome to the podcast.

Nino Coniglio: Thank you so much for having me.

Amanda Morrison: So, Nino, let’s just start from the beginning. You know, where did you grow up? Did I read Bedminster, New Jersey, or?

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, so, grew up between, like, you know, Raritan, New Jersey, and Brooklyn. Like, going back and forth as a kid. Like, my parents got divorced when I was small. So, you know, a lot of, uh, here and there. And then, uh, moved to Brooklyn, like, full-time when I was, like, 15, you know, 16, after I dropped out of high school.

Amanda Morrison: Okay. So, well, so, Tri-State Area. So, but growing up in New Jersey, did you have any favorite food spots? Like, did you always love pizza? Was there a, you know, a special pizza place that inspired you even to go on this journey or, you know?

Nino Coniglio: Yeah. So, uh, you know, my father, he, he used to pick me and my brothers up, like, every Wednesday, and then we would be with him on the weekend. So, you know, every single Wednesday, we would go out for pizza. And he had a bunch of buddies that made pizza, and, you know, he had one that, like, would toss a pizza around and, you know, could do tricks with it. But, the place that I started was, uh, Mama Mia in Raritan, New Jersey, when I was about 12 years old. And I was working under Tommy Catalano, who was from Bath Beach, Brooklyn. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, when we were kids, you know, we used to go to Brooklyn for places. We used to go to Bad Boys, JMV, LMB, Spumoni Gardens, uh, you know, special occasions, Totonno’s, Lombardi’s, Pats, Grimaldi’s. Uh, but yeah, like, I mean, in Jersey, you know, you got, like, the Frank’s pizzas and all those. And yeah, it was, uh, you know, both a lot of pizza. My father didn’t really cook.

Amanda Morrison: Did you have a preference between New York or New Jersey pizza? Because that is always a great debate.

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, so, you know, I feel like it’s all like in the same category to me. Like, I mean, once you get into, like, like Southern Jersey, like, tomato pies and stuff like that, it starts to get like a little bit different. But, I mean, there’s a bunch of, um, I’ve been at so many random spots in Northern New Jersey that, you know, only like locals have probably ever heard of. They’re not, like, not in the news that could stand, like, toe-to-toe with like great slice joints in New York. So, I kind of like consider like the same category of things more or less, unless you’re talking about specific tomato pie things and stuff like that from Southern Jersey.

Amanda Morrison: Yeah, I was going to say, do you have a specific style of pizza you like to eat? Or, and also, even is it the same of what you like to make, or do they vary? Yeah.

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, so, uh, you know, slice joints, um, New York style slice joints, NJ style slice joints are kind of like my go-to. But there’s also, like, um, you know, old school stuff like what we’re doing in Lucky Charlie’s is always a treat, I think. Uh, you know, I kind of stay away more or less from Neapolitan, unless I’m in Napoli going to like a Kento place. Um, you know, and, uh, yeah, old school Sicilian joints. I mean, LMB, pizza supreme, and, you know, there’s a lot of other ones like that. And, you know, that’s kind of like where my heart lives.

Amanda Morrison: Going to these different places, did you, I mean, did you go, I want to be a pizza maker right away? Or did you have other aspirations, or, or did you just want to eat it all the time?

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, so, uh, there was a lot of, uh, you know, kind of like “knockaround guys” in the pizza world. So, I was kind of like leaning towards that world and working in pizza part-time. And then as I got a little bit older, I figured out there’s not a lot of, uh, financial stability or future in that kind of lifestyle. So, like, at that point, like, I already knew how to make pizza. So, I was like, “All right, well, I dropped out of high school already. I don’t want to do that thing so much anymore. So, let me just like fully lean myself into this.” And it ended up working out pretty well.

Amanda Morrison: Do you have any particular person that you credit for kind of even like who, who showed you how to make pizza for the first time?

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, so that was at Mama Mia’s, Tommy Catalano. So he’s, uh, yeah, he’s definitely the guy who I rolled around with for a few years after that. Um, when I was 16, I got a job at, um, uh, Johnny’s Pizza on Avenue U and West 8th in Gravesend, Brooklyn. And then, you know, Johnny brought me to the next step. And then, you know, eventually I had to get out of the neighborhood because I got in a lot of trouble. And, uh, and yeah, I ended up going in the American OG and getting a job at this place called Baci in Williamsburg, which was the first wood-fired place I worked for, and just kind of, you know, kept on rolling out after that.

Amanda Morrison: So, I know you, I, so this journey has taken you to where you are today. But I know a lot of competitions have been, have brought you also to where you are. Um, how did you even decide that you wanted to start doing competitions? Or do you have any particular stories you’d want to share, share about any of your favorites?

Nino Coniglio: Yes, so, I mean, the competition thing, like, I, I don’t know. I must have seen it on like YouTube or something like that. No, actually, I would see it in the, um, in the trade magazine. So, PMQ and Pizza Today magazines get delivered to like, for free to all the pizzerias. They’re like an industry magazine. And they would have like, you know, uh, the International Pizza Challenge or the New York pizza show’s coming out, like, come compete. And then they would sell like the practice pizza doughs in there. So, um, I ended up getting one. And then I would just like practice at work, on the subways, at the bars, while I was after work. And then, uh, I forget how old I was. I was in my young 20s. I was probably like 20, 21 years old. And I was living in Hell’s Kitchen, like, a block or two away from the Javits Center. And they were having one of these, you know, acrobatic trials over there. So, I walked in, I ended up winning second place, got invited to Paris with the US Pizza Team. And then just kind of kept on rocking after that.

Amanda Morrison: Do you have a favorite, um, title that you have won in any of your competitions?

Nino Coniglio: I mean, the Pizza Maker of the Year thing, uh, you know, winning traditional and then going on and winning Pizza Maker of the Year at the International Pizza Challenge in Vegas is definitely probably, you know, the biggest and the baddest one in, you know, that world. Um, you know, I mean, it’s just like, listen, I’ve always had like the kind of mentality where like you just show up, you do your thing, and you see how it works out. Like, listen, like a lot of guys will come up to me and they’re like, “Hey, I don’t know if I should compete or not. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What if I lose?” And I’m like, “Listen, nobody knows if you lose. You know what I mean? Like, nobody’s like tracking. It’s like, ‘Oh, did you hear, uh, Mikey lost at the thing?'” Like, it’s not like a thing like that. So, it’s just go there, have fun. You know, Chopped was a really good time. Guy’s Grocery Games was a really good time. And, you know, back in the day when I was in my young 20s, like, traveling to, like, Italy, Shanghai, Paris, uh, et cetera, with the US Pizza Team with Ryan LaRose, Pat Miller, that was always, you know, I mean, those were some of the greatest times of that era of my life.

Amanda Morrison: Do you have any kind of a blooper moment that you remember from any of the shows?

Nino Coniglio: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I think it was, yeah, it was the second round of, um, Chopped. It wasn’t a blooper moment, but they cut it out. Like, so, you know, you have to, like, you know, you open the box. They do a camera reset. And then you got to go over to the pantry and figure out what you, what you want to, you know, the ingredients you want to get to cook whatever you’re cooking. So, I grab all my stuff, and walking out with the, with the tray, I see a pineapple on the shelf. So, I, like, throw the pineapple under my arm. And all of a sudden, like, all the cameras start descending on me. And the host is running on. The judges are like, “No, just grab the pineapple, blah, blah, blah, blah”. So, they, uh, so they all kind of like descend upon me. And they’re like, “No, what are you going to do with the pineapple?” I was just like, “Yo, pineapple doesn’t go on pizza”. And I throw it in the garbage. But I talked to the producer after the episode came out. And she was like, “Yeah, the executives didn’t want like to get like emails about like food waste in there”. So, I was like, “Well, okay, whatever”. But—

Amanda Morrison: I think I read somewhere that you met your wife, uh, through one of the shows.

Nino Coniglio: Yeah. Yeah. At the, uh, Pizza Expo in Vegas. Um, yeah, met, uh, Charlene Breen, my wife, love of my life, over there. Uh, she, she was like, kind of like, so, my wife’s been obsessed with pizza, like, since she was 12 years old. And, like, everything she owns since then is like pizza related. From, like, her bed sheets to her purses, to her dresses, to accessories, and, you know, weird toys and stuff like that. So, we met over there. She wasn’t like a huge fan of me, but, um, I grew on her after a couple days. And then I think that was the year when I won the, the Pizza Maker of the Year and the traditional title over there. So, I think that’s what kind of like wooed her in the beginning.

Amanda Morrison: I’d say it would work. Um, so, uh, where was she originally from?

Nino Coniglio: She was originally from El Centro, California. And then when we met, she was living in, uh, Hollywood in Los Angeles.

Amanda Morrison: So, you brought her to the East Coast.

Nino Coniglio: She, yeah, so we were doing, like, kind of, you know, I was like back and forth a little bit at that time. So, she would come visit me, I would come visit her. And then, like, after a couple, after like a month or two of that, she just moved in with me.

Amanda Morrison: Was Morristown your first restaurant that you opened?

Nino Coniglio: No, so, uh, the first place I had a partnership in was, um, Il Gatto in the South Street Seaport, where I was a minority partner. Um, and then I sold my shares of that to go open a place in Marine Park. And that place was called Del Corso on Avenue Batchelder in Marine Park, Brooklyn. Uh, that was the first place that I like really owned. And then that went out of business, ’cause Benatio, it was supposed to be me and Benio. But then he just took off to Italy. And I was like kind of young. I did a some dumb things. Didn’t really understand the business so well, um, outside of just like banging out pizzas. And then opened up Williamsburg Pizza after that, about 13 years ago.

Amanda Morrison: Okay. What made you pick Morristown?

Nino Coniglio: So, I don’t know if I should tell this story in its entirety. Uh, yes.

Amanda Morrison: The PG version. Let’s do.

Nino Coniglio: There was, uh, no, it’s not like a bad story. The, like, so my buddy Carmine Ta, who owns, um, Jersey Pizza Boys. So, his kids, they do the pizza acrobatics too. They’ve been on like Jimmy Kimmel and all that. He had opened a place in Annandale, New Jersey, and had called me up. I was in Brooklyn at the time still, like, all the time. And he was like, “Listen, I know you’re slammed. I know the answer is probably no, but I could use a little help, um, at the pizzeria. We just opened this joint”. And I was like, “Yeah, I could come help you on the weekends”. Uh, so I was doing that. And, you know, Carmine was posted on his Instagram, so he kind of, um, like people kind of knew I was around. And this one kid who showed up, we thought he was somebody else. Like, ’cause the kitchen over there is in the back. So, when somebody shows up, you can’t like see who it is. So, it’s like, “Oh, Scott’s here”. And we think it’s, uh, Carmine’s best friend, Scott. And it ended up being this different Scott, who we knew who he was because he had like an infamous Barstool Sports video. Um, and, you know, he was just like hanging out of the back, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he, he, he goes, “Yo, like after he was there a few hours asking a million questions, he was like, ‘Yo, can I talk to you for a second?'” I was like, “Yeah”. And he’s like, “Listen, I’m trying to sell my pizzeria. And I got like a proof for like a $3 million SBA. I want to like do something with you. We’ll go 50/50, this and that”. And I knew this guy was like a little crazy. But, like, 3 million and liquor licenses in New Jersey, the blinders kind of went on a little bit. So, I was like, “Oh, let’s do blah, blah, blah, blah”. So, then we hooked up with this real estate dude, um, who was a friend of his, this guy Garrett Baldi. And then, you know, we’re going back and forth with it. And then after like a couple weeks, this kid like just disappeared off the face of the planet. But now, the guy Garrett Baldi kept on calling me. And then I finally, I told him, I was like, “Listen, I just opened a new place in Brooklyn. I started, you know, a partnership with another company. Like, I’ll go to Jersey. I’ll go back and open a place in Jersey one day. But probably not this year, probably not next year”. So, then this guy keeps on calling me. He’s like, “Yo, you got to see this place”, blah, blah, blah, blah. “It doesn’t cost anything to look, yada, yada, yada”. And my cousin, Carly, had just had a baby and had bought a house a year before in Morristown. So, I said, “F it”. Because I needed to go see the baby anyway. And this would like force me to not procrastinate on visiting Carly and seeing the baby. Because she’s like assistant to me. So, I went and saw the place. And once I saw it, I was like, “Hey, maybe there’s something here”. So then I go to Carly’s house. And, you know, I’m outside like on the phone with like New York. And then her brother, my other cousin, was like, he was in from Los Angeles. And he was like, “Yo, what are you doing?” I told him. I was like, “I looked at this place. I still got to do a lot more research. But maybe there’s something there”. And he asked me where it was. And he knows the area. I, I’d never been to Morristown in my life. He was like, “Oh, it’s next to Iron Bar, blah, blah, blah. I’ll throw it down”. And then, yeah, long story short, we just kind of sat on Carly’s kitchen island with an Excel sheet and broke it down right there. And after like 3 hours, I was like, “Oh, I guess we’re opening up a pizzeria in Morristown”.

Amanda Morrison: Where in Morristown are you located? [The speaker is asking for the location of the Morristown establishment mentioned in the prior response, which includes Morristown in the question text. The citation is to the start of the previous response to ensure full context is included.]

Nino Coniglio: So, I’m on South Street. Um, pretty much right across the street from the Green, right next door to, uh, Iron Bar and Revolution. Okay. Um, so like right in, you know, the center of town. The location we’re in, and like no one was ever able. It was a Bear Burger before it was me, and it had been like 10 different restaurants in 20 years. I think like nobody lasted more than like a year or two there.

Amanda Morrison: When did you open?

Nino Coniglio: We opened three years ago on Halloween.

Amanda Morrison: Okay. So, have you even, I mean, a lot of restaurants, you know, changes, whether it’s, you know, physical renovations or menu changes. Have you changed everything or is it exactly the same as you started? Or do you have any plans to, you know, expand?

Nino Coniglio: Yes, so we, right now we’re building out, we, we, we acquired a liquor license at the lease for the next store to us, uh, which is adding another 7,000 square feet. Um, and when we do that, like, we’re going to start doing more, um, you know, waiter and waitress service. And, um, you know, add some items to the menu. But no, when we opened, and this is kind of like kind of my MO as of late, and how I like to open whatever I open, is when we opened, we were like five days a week, 5:00 to, you know, 10 or 11. And just a simple menu, and then we added stuff to there from there. So now, we, we do, um, you know, full-on bakery with sourdough bread and baloney and fresh-made croissants and all that. But, like, yeah, we just added everything slowly where after like a year and a half, it’s pretty much what it is today. And even after a year and a half, like, now we do, we have a brass, uh, die pasta extruder from Italy. So, now all the pastas are homemade in house every day. And, you know, the whole thing has always just been like, hey, you know, once you get this down, like, go on to the next thing and get crazier and crazier and don’t listen to everybody. But, like, the, the rule is, is if we don’t make it there, we don’t sell it, um, from scratch. Because, listen, most people don’t make their own bread. Most people don’t make their own cannoli. Most people don’t make, you know, if they have cannoli, they’re buying shells and then, you know, a cannoli cream and kind of filling it up most of the time. So, yeah, that’s how we do it over there. Now, we’re open, uh, Sunday through Thursday, from 7:00 a.m. to, uh, like 11. And then Friday and Saturday, 7:00 a.m. till 2:00 in the morning.

Amanda Morrison: How has the pizza scene changed over the years? And have you seen any emerging trends coming up, um, either over the years or even recently?

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah, I mean, it’s changed a lot. I mean, when I was getting into it, um, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of the places were like, you know, kind of off the boat or first generation Italian guys. And that was like, and then, you know, there was also a lot of Albanian guys that were starting to get into the business. And like, usually like when a place would sell, like, it would sell to, like, like another Italian guy or Albanian guy. And everybody was kind of doing like the sameish thing, as far is like, like dough fermentation. Nobody understood what like hydrations were. Nobody under, it was just like, “Hey, take this Coca-Cola cup and fill it up with salt”. And then another guy would do salt and sugar. And use this much yeast. Maybe they weigh it, maybe they don’t. Everything was, uh, all Trumps flour, which is like a bleached bromated flour. And I mean, back then, it was really hard to get like decent pizza outside the Tri-State. Now, um, there’s a lot more information out there that just wasn’t available back then. Um, you know, if you picked up a book about making pizza back then, it would say like, you know, “Go get like a package of instant yeast and mix it with like one cup of water, one cup of flour”. Like, you know, kind of like that, which isn’t really, um, too helpful for open up a commercial place. So, now like kind of all the information is out there. And you know, around the country, you’re seeing like major changes. Um, I think before, for a lot of guys, like, the alchemy of making the dough and figuring out all that without like kind of like the myths and the legends and like doing stuff for a fact was like a really rare thing. Um, where like having like chops to like bang out like 150, 200 pies by yourself was a real common thing. Um, and being able to like kind of go around the restaurant and move the right way. Now, I see a lot of places opening where like guys, you know, they understand like the science behind everything. But like they’ll like kind of like start as like they’ll grab an Ooni oven or or Gozney and kind of like do pop-ups at bars and this and that and raise money. So, they kind of like learn the chops in like a weird way. Where like they never really worked at a place for like one or two or five years to gain those chops. So, they kind of make up their own chops. So, it’s like a, it’s like it’s changed like that a lot. And then, but there’s a lot of cool places opening. And it’s just, I mean, I think the pizza, um, is gotten better, you know, overall, um, and from a lot of metrics than it was back then. And people are really, you know, going towards better ingredients. They’re going towards, um, you know, not using chemicals that are illegal in every country on the planet, including China, in their flours. Um, you know, really good fermentation techniques and, um, learning about that. So, it’s like kind of like, uh, it’s, it’s a funny thing. There’s also another side of it where, you know, I mean, when I was coming up, like, you know, I mentioned like Johnny’s Pizza, Mama Mia. Like, Johnny’s Pizza, like, you know, you’re rented a shop for $800 to $1,000 a month. You know, you’re paying a pizza guy $6 to $10 an hour in cash without payroll tax, without, you know, insurances and all these other things that come along with it. And now it’s like, you know, and it’s not even about like a minimum wage thing or anything. It’s just like the facts on the ground is like even if you’re a dishwasher, you have to live somewhere. And I mean, show me a one-bedroom apartment that’s less than two grand like anywhere in the Tri-State Area. You know, if somebody can’t cash their check minus taxes and cover their rent, Wi-Fi, car payment, like, or car insurance or whatever, even if you’re like, you know, have a 15-year-old car that costs $2,000 and a really crappy apartment, you know, they can’t survive. So, the cost of doing business has gone up, uh, dramatically, um, since then. Where you really got to be on your stuff from every aspect. Where before, you, you know, like, you could get by. You know what I mean? It was like, “Listen, like, you know, you’re doing like 500 bucks a day”. Like, you know, you weren’t getting rich, but you weren’t going out of business. You know what I mean? If you open a shop today and do less than like 20 grand, even in a tiny shop, a week, you’re not long for this world.

Amanda Morrison: Well, thank you so much for coming. Morristown was actually my college town back in the day. So, I’m definitely going to have to check out your spot there and your spots in New York. Yeah. Um, so for our listeners, where can they follow you? Either on social media.

Nino Coniglio: Yeah, so, um, uh, Coniglio’s, uh, on Instagram, uh, Brooklyn Pizza Crew, Lucky Charlie’s BK. And, you know, follow those. There’s more to come.

Amanda Morrison: All right, cool. Thank you so much for being a guest. I appreciate it.

Nino Coniglio: No problem. Thank you.

Amanda Morrison: Thank you for listening. Make sure you check us out wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And follow us at Don’t Sit Home and the Best of NJ podcast on social media.