03/01/2026
Salerno’s Recipes 🇮🇹
How does a young couple — barely more than kids themselves — buy a little pizzeria and dare to serve more than just pizza?
They go home.
Back to Old Forge, Pennsylvania.
Back to their parents.
Back to the kitchens where it all began.
Josephine’s family, the Lucarelli’s, were bakers — the real kind.
Flour on their aprons. Warm bread on the table. Cakes cooling by the window.
Their hands knew dough the way a musician knows his instrument.
And the Salerno family?
Ahhh… pasta and sauce.
Rich Sunday gravy simmering for hours.
Lasagna layered with love.
Recipes whispered, never written… but always remembered.
Vito and Josephine gathered those family treasures and carried them back to Bridgeport like heirlooms.
In those early days, the menu was simple. Humble.
Spaghetti.
Ziti.
Lasagne.
Meatball grinders.
Sausage grinders.
Coffee. Tea. Bottled soda.
And for dessert — my boyhood favorite —
Frisbie Pies !!!
That was it.
But what we lacked in variety, we made up for in heritage.
Every sauce.
Every baked delight
Every tray of baked pasta.
They weren’t just recipes.
They were Italy — carried across the ocean, handed down through generations, and served on Park Avenue in the South End of Bridgeport.
From our grandparents’ kitchen…
To your family’s booth…
That was Salerno’s on Park
Avenue.
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Salerno's in Stratford is an old-
fashioned, Mom and
Pop, Neighborhood
Pizzeria.. Right out of the 1940s. Retro Dining Room / booths and tables.
Doo W*p music.
Hand tossed Pizzas - Homemade
pastas - Baked Italian Specialties.
Since 1947. Come visit !!!
