Frank Brija

Where It Started The spine of Brija’s career runs through East Harlem and through a single address of influence. He worked alongside the Lancieri family for many years before Patsy’s Pizzeria passed to him in 1991, learning through proximity to the people who had shaped the restaurant’s daily rhythm. Carmella Lancieri is central to that formation. Before Brija took over operations, he had spent many years working alongside her, a detail that gives his later ownership the feel of succession rather than rupture. In 1991, Brija purchased the original East Harlem pizzeria. The transfer was not to him alone in isolation: the restaurant was sold to him and longtime employees, and the continuity of the room depended on people who already knew its oven, its pace, and its regulars.

Who Shaped Them The house that shaped Brija was the Lancieri family’s, and the craft that held the house together was coal-fired pizza. That lineage matters most in the way it was preserved: after the sale, Brija continued the original East Harlem coal-fired tradition rather than turning the restaurant into something else. The pizzeria is associated with traditional New York-style thin-crust pizza baked in a coal oven. Its place in the city’s slice culture is also part of its lore: it is widely credited with being the first to sell pizza slices in New York City, although that claim is debated. The admiration around the pizza reached beyond neighborhood memory. Frank Sinatra admired the coal-fired pies and listed the 117th Street address when praising the restaurant, giving its East Harlem identity a place in a larger New York story.

The Work Today

Since 1991, Brija has owned the East Harlem restaurant and carried forward a narrow, demanding inheritance: thin crust, coal heat, and a style tied to Manhattan’s old pizza map. His role is less about reinvention than guardianship, the kind that depends on keeping faith with a method already recognized by generations of customers. That work is concrete. A coal oven, a New York-style thin crust, and the original East Harlem tradition remain the center of the craft associated with him. In a city where restaurants often change hands and change character at the same time, Brija’s importance comes from the link he maintained between the Lancieri family, Carmella Lancieri, longtime employees, and the pizza still associated with 117th Street.