There will be sauce.
A Brooklyn pizzeria that’s been famously serving up square slices and spumoni for 85 years opened a long-awaited outpost in DUMBO this week on the same block as two iconic slice shops — but claimed it was not firing the first shot in a pizza war.
Legendary Gravesend eatery L&B Spumoni Gardens opened a second location at 46 Old Fulton St., directly across the street from Grimaldi’s Pizzeria and Juliana’s, where pizza lovers routinely stand in line for hours to devour coal-fired, brick-oven pies.
And around the corner on Water Street is another favorite, Ignazio’s, which makes pies with a gas-fired brick oven.
L&B’s reception “has been amazing,” said general manager Charlie Cavallo, who insisted the competition is friendly — with plenty of dough to be made by everyone.
“I think it’s a great mix of restaurants where each has their own thing – their own niche,” he said. “They’re brick oven. We are gas oven, and we’re known for our ‘upside down’ square pies and our world-famous spumoni.”
“I’m so excited about this becoming the pizza mecca of New York because you have some heavy hitters here,” added Cavallo.
Matt Grogan, co-founder of Juliana’s, agreed, saying “the bottom line is” L&B’s arrival “will be great for the neighborhood because it will bring even more people down to Old Fulton Street” to take in the “whole pizza experience.”
“This is probably the most concentrated street in the five boroughs for high-quality pizza,” said Grogan.
Charlotte Testerman, general manager of Grimaldi’s flagship DUMBO pizzeria, also extended a warm welcome to L & B.
“We look forward to friendly competition and plenty of pizza for visitors and locals alike to enjoy for many years to come,” she said.
Although there’s currently pizza peace on Old Fulton Street, it wasn’t always that way — Juliana’s and Grimaldi’s were locked in a feud for years.
Coal-oven legend Patsy Grimaldi sold his eponymous eatery Grimaldi’s — and it’s naming rights — in 1998 to Frank Ciolli.
But after Ciollli moved the business next door following a dispute with his landlord over rent, Grimaldi came out of retirement in 2012.The pizzaiolo and his late wife Carol partnered with Grogan to open Juliana’s, named after Grimaldi’s mother, at the original location.
Much of the bad blood ended after Ciolli’s son Joe took over Grimaldi’s operations five years ago.
L&B’s menu of square and round pies, meat dishes, salad dishes, pastas, spumoni and other desserts are prepared exactly how they’re made at the Gravesend location on 86th Street, said Cavallo.
Customers insist they can’t tell the difference.
“It’s exactly the same,” said Matt Martin, 31, while buying two square pies and spumoni to take back to his family on Staten Island. “It brings back all those old memories because I grew up on the pizza from the original place.”
The dining area’s façade is a combination of brick walls and custom-made wallpaper featuring photos showing how L & B’s founder Ludovico Barbati started the business by selling garage-made pizza, spumoni and ices along southern Brooklyn roads on a horse-drawn wagon before making enough money to open the Gravesend location in 1939.