Alexander “Chick” De Lorenzo was born in 1922, as one of twelve children to Pasquale and Maria De Lorenzo who immigrated from Southern Italy in the early 1900s.
In 1947 Chick decided it was time for a place of his own and he established ‘DeLorenzo’s Tomato Pies’ at 530 Hudson Street, also known as “DeLo’s” for short.
Chick is a U.S. Army Veteran of World War II and with his late wife Sophie, he owned and operated the DeLorenzo’s on Hudson Street in Trenton for 50 years before he retired and gave the restaurant to his daughter and son in law, Eileen and Gary Amico.
Sam Amico is the grandson of the original owner Chick De Lorenzo. He opened the Robbinsville location in late 2007. This new location opened soon after Chick passed away in September of the same year.
It operated simultaneously with the Hudson Street location until early 2012 when his parents, Gary and Eileen, decided to retire and close the doors for good. Amico says a need for a second restaurant was the reason for the Robbinsville establishment opening.
“We were in a position where we knew we had the room and resources to expand so we figured why not,” says Amico.
He continues, “We just felt like we were popular and could be making a bigger killing. We expanded to Robbinsville because it was in proximity, and it has paid off. I became the owner here and my parents continued running the Hudson Street location until it closed in 2007.”
When you enter the restaurant, you notice the reiteration of the name. ‘DeLorenzo’s Tomato Pies’ is printed on every single pizza box as well as the walls and doors. There are booths and tables that face the kitchen, normally filled with large families. The kitchen and pizza counter overlook the dining room, giving the guest the ability to watch their pizza or salad as it’s made.
Wanting to make his grandfather proud, Amico and the rest of the DeLorenzo’s team are big on keeping that Italian tradition remnant in their restaurant. Amico made it a point that the way the staff dresses is very important as well.
He says, “The staff and management always dress in a button-down shirt with a black tie and dress pants. This is how the pizza makers at the original store on Hudson Street made it. At the Robbinsville location, bussers wear a white button-down and black tie, waiters wear the same thing with a black vest on top, and pizza makers just wear a plain white shirt. We always want to look clean, never sloppy.”
Pizza-maker and busser, Luke Young, who has worked at DeLorenzo’s for two years explained the tradition of cutting the pizza into squares and rectangles instead of regular slices.
“We cut the pizza into shapes, vertically, because that’s been a tradition since the first restaurant opened in 1947. It’s cut with a normal knife rather than a pizza cutter,” says Young.
At the location in Robbinsville, customers will get these square or rectangular pieces of pizza. Some pieces have no crust and are only part of the pie as they are cut from the middle. Some have crusts on one or two sides. This is something that no other local pizza place around does and will never change at DeLorenzo’s because it is a tradition that has been there since the beginning.
“The oddest part about the tradition is that we really don’t have an explanation for it,” Amico says, adding, “When the first DeLorenzo’s opened, and my grandfather needed to start cutting pizzas all he had was a knife. It worked in the beginning, so we just continued with it.”
Jack Bell, 75, a resident of Robbinsville, says he tries to make it into DeLo’s at least once a week. He likes the old-fashioned ambiance he says.
“I’ve been going to the same restaurant ever since I was a little kid…I remember going to the first DeLo’s, on Hudson Street when I was a kid in the 1960s. This place takes me right back there, puts me right at the table with my parents and brother.”
