Fans of Ollie’s Pizza in High Falls and idle passersby in Kingston have spent the past year trading heated rumors about what’s to come at the Broadway storefront formerly occupied by Midtown institution Tony’s Pizzeria. In the past few weeks, as the paper has been peeled back from the windows to reveal gleaming tiled interiors, the speculative buzz has reached a deafening roar. The public gets its first taste next week.
In March 2022, the owners of Ollie’s, Innis Lawrence, Sophie Peltzer-Rollo, and Ilan Bachrach, teamed up with chef Chris Bradley and other partners to buy 582 Broadway. The building dates back to the mid-1800s—many public works projects and iterations of Kingston ago—and the interior space had been divvied up differently in its tenure as Tony’s. Petzer-Rollo describes the result of their year-plus gut renovation as simultaneously “more cohesive and distinct.” The new incarnation features three separate storefronts—each will accommodate one aspect of the three-pronged business.
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The storefronts will house: Eliza, a wine bar and sit-down bistro; Fletcher and Lu, a provisions market stocked with products made in-house; and Ollie’s Slice Shop, which will serve a hungry grab-and-go lunch crowd with hefty slices and 20-inch pies available for pick up. The latter two will come online in mid-August, with Eliza slated for a late-September opening.
A Vertically Integrated Model
“Each space has its own identity, entrance, and utility,” says Petzer-Rollo. In the back-of-house, however, an unseen synergy is taking place, with a shared commissary driving a vertically integrated business model that will supply all three arms of the business plus Ollie’s Pizza in High Falls.
Chef Chris Bradley, who will helm Eliza, has a stacked CV with over 15 years’ experience in the New York City fine dining scene, including at Cafe Boulud and Gramercy Tavern. After a stint at Phoenicia Diner, which included co-authoring their namesake cookbook, Bradley had been preparing to open his own restaurant when the pandemic hit. Hedging his bets, he put the concept on ice and joined the team at Ollie’s as they prepared to open in summer 2020.
“We saw how aligned we were on how to do things,” he says of his partners. “Six months into working together, we started looking for spaces and talking about doing more together. We stumbled upon the Tony’s space, and it had three distinct storefronts. The slice shop seemed like a natural outgrowth of Ollie’s. And I had my restaurant concept fully formed.” That left the third space. Luckily, Bradley knew a guy.
Bradley had cooked with Julien Shapiro on the line at Upper East Side restaurant Aureole, and he knew that the culinary Jack of all trades could be the missing ingredient to tie the whole plan together. A chef, butcher, baker, and charcuterie maker, Shapiro had the broad skill set to facilitate the model the partners envisioned: a single commissary to process products to supply all three restaurants plus a retail market.
After visiting the Hudson Valley from the North Fork, where he was running a farm and butcher shop, Shapiro decided he was in. He packed up his kitchen knives and moved upstate. “It all fell into place,” Bradley says. “We never would have taken on all these projects if we didn’t have a strong lead for each of the spaces—that would have flipped us from ambitious to foolish.”
Fletcher & Lu Provisions Market
The commissary is the hub of a spinning wheel with many spokes. Shapiro’s purview includes everything from butchering whole animals and filleting whole fish to aging, curing, and smoking meat; making dough for pizza and focaccia; boiling stocks; baking pastries; and generally finding the tastiest, most efficient ways to use off-cuts.
“We’ve never been willing to compromise on sourcing; that is part of our ethos,” Petzer-Rollo says. “This [model] allows us to do everything in-house and be even more intentional. Our ability to maintain quality control is that much more leveraged, plus it helps us keep costs down and minimize waste so we can be as closed-loop as possible.”
Like a culinary Rumpelstiltskin, Shapiro will butcher and prep whole animals for the restaurants and spin the rest into gold for the retail shop, or, as he says, make silk purses out of burlap. “We might supplement, but basically the center cuts, the more valuable cuts, will go to the bistro, and we’ll use scraps, trimmings, offal, etc. [for products] in the retail store,” Shapiro explains. Some possible uses for leftover pork? Sausage, bacon, hot dogs, charcuterie, smoked ham, pates, terrines. For beef? Brisket, roast beef, stock, meatballs, hamburgers, kabobs, braises, shanks, stews, ragouts. And his ambitions don’t stop at land animals—Shapiro hopes to turn out steelhead trout gravlax, oil-poached tuna, pickled herring, seafood boudin, smoked eel pies, chowders, and fish stews.
“Due to its nature, we will have variety, but not all at once,” Shapiro says of the shop’s inventory. “We have a wish list of everything we want to get done—we are ambitious—but it won’t all be available at once.”
A hallmark of the provisions market will be the rotisserie chicken program, an easy grab-and-go option for weeknight dinner. To round out the ever-rotating in-house offerings, the market will also sell a curated but limited selection of dry goods. “We’re not really looking to be a grocer, more like a ‘pick up your dinner fixins’ kind of a thing,” Petzer-Rollo says. The market will also have a license to sell beer and cider.
“Fine dining will be at the wine bar, and the retail store will be more casual,” Shapiro says. “It provides us an outlet that allows us to work with whole animals. It’s not for everyone, but it is nice to be able to work with what nature is giving and not just pick and choose. It forces you to think ahead and have a game plan based on season. You develop a system given the time of year and what people are eating then.”
Ollie’s Slice Shop
Things will be simpler and more consistent on the other side of the wall at Ollie’s Slice Shop. Slices are in the $3.50 to $5 range, with four main options: cheese, white, vodka, and tomato, alongside vegan, gluten-free, and Sicilian variations.
Customize your slice or pie with meaty options like pepperoni, sausage, meatball, and bacon; or veggies like mushrooms, caramelized onions, pickled cherry peppers, garlic confit, Calabrian chilis, or basil. At 20 inches, the whole pie ($23-28) is larger than most local spots. A six-per order of garlic knots rounds out the meal for a breezy $3.50.
“It’s a different menu and a totally different style of pizza,” Petzer-Rollo clarifies of the Kingston pizza offerings. Where the High Falls pies are a personal-pan-sized 14 inches, thin-crust, and wood fired, the Kingston pies are family-sized, thicker, and baked in an electric oven. “It’ll be much more what you expect from a classic New York slice shop—a little bit more crispy and firm. It’ll be easier to grab and go,” Petzer-Rollo says. “Same high quality ingredients, same dough processes—it will be familiar to people, but they shouldn’t expect a replica of High Falls.”
A Caesar salad and a house salad add some greenery to the mix ($12), while the honking meatball parm hero on housemade semolina bread is sure to become a fast favorite for lunch ($13).
With limited seating (a single booth and a half-dozen window stools), the slice shop will be mostly a to-go and fast-turnover operation, though it will have a beer and wine license for onsite consumption. Katie Morton, who currently works at Kingston Wine Co. (which the partners took over last year), will step into the role of wine director for Eliza. “When we talk about sourcing food ingredients really conscientiously, we are applying the same metrics to our beverage program as well,” Petzer-Rollo says of the selections, which will favor wines made with minimal intervention and sustainable growing practices.
Gearing Up for Evolution
It’s a wild time for the partners to be opening this new constellation of businesses. By Bradley’s count, the High Falls location has seen a 25 percent jump in business this year, besting one-day sales records half a dozen times this summer. “It’s a good problem to have,” he says. All the partners are wearing multiple hats from over-qualified line cook to interior designer, pizza chef to GC, simultaneously moving all fronts forward.
When Fletcher & Lu and Ollie’s Slice Shop finally open next week, all the attention will be turned on finishing Eliza, which Bradley conceptualizes as an American take on the European neighborhood bistro, with an emphasis on small plates that can be mixed and matched to meet any occasion or appetite.
But, first things first: Get the other two businesses open.
“We have a lot of ties in Kingston,” Petzer-Rollo says. “We’re psyched that the momentum from Ollie’s has allowed us to be a part of Midtown and to be engaged in the evolution of that neighborhood.”
Stay tuned to Ollie’s Instagram for updates on the opening day for the slice shop and provisions market.
Mixed feelings and complex emotions, Tony’s seems completely eradicated by the photos, maybe even the 100+ year old recipes based on mention of the menu. And I do love Ollie’s and I’m excited for something to succeed there. Can I get the antipasto and vinaigrette/marinated tomato recipes?? Might help with my grieving process…
How’s bout Rice balls
GOOD LUCK