A World-Famous Connecticut Original Celebrates 100 Years of Yum

There are only a handful of restaurants that survive 10+ years in Connecticut, so stand up and applaud as one of our originals celebrates 100 years in 2025.

Do you remember the first time you had a Frank Pepe apizza? I started working in New Haven in 1991, and that was the first time that I heard the name that has since become a Giant of Connecticut. My first pizza from the original Wooster Street location was a white clam, and it was, and still is one of the best apizza that I've had in my life. My second trip was during the following Summer, and I tried one of their famous tomato pies. I've inhaled hundreds since.

According to pepespizzeria.com, Frank Pepe was confident enough to strike out on his own and founded his own place to make his own version of apizza from Naples, Italy exactly 100 years ago in June of 1925. It took most of the country 60 years to catch on that he was doing things with that coal-fired oven that no one else could.

As we know now in 2025 as Frank Pepe Pizzaria Napolitana celebrates the 100th anniversary of putting New Haven on a national map, Pepe's Pizza has spread that knowledge across Connecticut and most of the East coast of the US. As of today, Connecticut is home to 8 Frank Pepe Restaurants: New Haven, Danbury, Waterbury, Manchester, Stamford, West Hartford, Fairfield, and Uncasville. There are also 3 in Massachusetts, two in Florida, and one Pepe's exists in New York, Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island.

Besides the everyday winning we have with 8 restaurants in Connecticut, Pepe's just started own celebration with their '100 years of apizza giveaway'. The Grand Prize is an electric Fiat, but you could also win a pair of Italian bikes, a fancy espresso machine, or a VIP pizza tour. Someone please pass the red pepper flakes, it's apizza time.