Anthony Franco's: Pizza and Mystery

Even before we began our endeavor to find Parsippany’s best pizza some eight weeks ago, we had already visited one of the pizzerias that Parsippany residents recommended we check out: Anthony Franco's on Route 46 West just past Baldwin Road. There had been no opportunity to review the place during the winter, but with the best pizza contest weighing upon us, it was time to go back.

Anthony Franco's is part of a mini-chain of pizza restaurants started in 1989 by two brothers named Anthony and Frank. As pizzerias go, it has the typical linoleum, Formica, a little Tuscan influence in the décor and of course, paper plates. It's a Jersey pizzeria.

The restaurant seemed busy during the week with locals in and out picking up slices and sandwiches for lunch. Since we didn’t want to blow our cover, we were not sure if Anthony or Frank might have been there during our two stops. Besides, we were busy enjoying some pretty good thin-crust brick oven pizza: It was generous with cheese, veggies and seasonings. This pizza was a definite palate pleaser. (Plain slices are $2; ones with a topping go for $2.50.)

But we wanted to find the brothers, so the phone was the next tool we used to find Anthony and Frank. Little did we know that these siblings have a little Houdini in them and were often hard to track down. A call to the Parsippany store would send us calling to Lincoln Park. That phone call usually led to someone saying, “He just left, try this number.” So it went as we continued our pursuit.

One day we came into possession of an empty box that somewhat explained the history of Anthony Franco's.

The pizza makers there avoid using anything frozen. They get their cheese from Wisconsin dairies and vegetables from the Hunts Point Market in New York City. Their pasta is “freshly made and delivered to us weekly from one of Brooklyn’s oldest pasta houses,” reads the written history. Other branches of the Anthony Franco's chain are in Butler-Kinnelon, Livingston, Paramus, Ramsey, Hawthorne and Verona.

In the meantime we checked out lots of other Parsippany pizzerias. Still, we wanted to at least talk to one of the brothers to learn how they got into this business, where their recipes came from, that sort of fill-in-the-blank back and forth that can often reveal a lot about a restaurant and its origins.

As luck would have it, we recently found Frank in the Lincoln Park store; Anthony works in Parsippany but we were never able to track him down.

When we told Frank about our months’ long quest to get to the heart of Anthony Franco's, he laughed and said, “You can always reach me here.”

At that point the questions came tumbling out. Whose recipes are these? Do you have family in the business? How many pizzerias do you own? Are there any more planned? 

We learned that Tony and Frank’s mother, Anna Bini, whose family is from Naples, is most likely the source of many of the recipes which are so critical to a pizzeria and Italian family restaurant. For the first 10 years that they were in business, a cousin named Marco Bini, who is from Florence and is a chef in Italy, spent time with them in New Jersey working on recipes, testing, tasting and tweaking. Marco returned to Italy and the brothers have continued to grow their little empire, most recently opening their Verona and Hawthorne branches.

Having finally spoken with one of the brothers, we feel like we’ve gotten to the heart of Anthony Franco's. But there is one more mystery we cannot crack. No matter how many times we asked, Frank never gave us his last name. When we explained that it lends the story validity, he declined, citing his desire to keep the last name off the web.

“Nothing personal about me,” he closed with before hanging up the phone.

All right, he's a little bit mysterious. But he sure can make some tasty pizza.

Anthony Franco's, 1442 Route 46 West, (973) 299-8282
Open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m,. Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.,  Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.