‘The last of old Miami': Family-owned pizza joint celebrates 70 years on Bird Road

Miami Herald

20-02-2025

For Roxanne and Renee Pasquarella, owners of Frankie's Pizza on Bird Road in Miami, the memories are everywhere — on the street, in the kitchen, in the sauce and in the smiles of customers who walk out with the same pies they've been ordering for decades.
Their late father — Frank Pasquarella from Steubenville, Ohio, who opened Frankie's with his wife Doreen 70 years ago — is everywhere, too.
Roxanne remembers him depositing her protectively into a clean garbage can inside the restaurant when she was a toddler, keeping her away from hot pizza pans and other kitchen dangers.
'He gave me a pad and a pencil and said, 'Take orders,' she says. 'That was the playpen back then.'
Renee, four years younger, remembers her dad paying her five bucks to cut up a 50-pound bag of onions. 'I thought that was a great deal,' she says.
She also remembers looking out the restaurant window with him and seeing horses clopping down Bird Road, a sight almost unimaginable now.
'Now it's a seven-lane highway,' she muses of the perpetually busy street. 'We used to see cow pastures. The change is amazing. But our business has stayed the same.'
There have been small alterations, of course. But Frankie's Pizza, which opened on Valentine's Day in 1955 and has just celebrated 70 years of serving the ultimate comfort food to generations of Miamians, remains largely unchanged (riding up on a horse might not be the best idea anymore, though).
Seventy years is a stunning milestone in any city, but it's especially notable in ever-changing, sprawling Miami, which all too often values flash over community. The cow pastures have given way to concrete, but along with its longtime Westchester-area restaurant neighbors along Bird Road, Arbetter's Hot Dogs, which opened in 1959, and Tropical Chinese, a relative newcomer that opened in 1984, Frankie's is a reminder of a different Miami, one that was smaller, quieter and — hard as it may be to believe — quaint.
'Everybody knew everybody,' Roxanne remembers.
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The elder Pasquarellas, who were enchanted by Miami while on vacation and quickly moved there, opened the first incarnation of the restaurant near the University of Miami. Two years later in 1957, they moved to the current location, taking over a former grocery store and serving the crispy, almost focaccia-like square slices that would make them famous on Bird Road.
To this day, the menu hasn't broadened much beyond pizza and garlic knots and a few odd desserts, although Renee admits that additions like Mike's Hot Honey squirted over a pie would have been an issue for her dad.
'He'd be rolling in his grave at some of these toppings, even ham,' she says, laughing.
Family has long been a cornerstone of the business. When Frank Pasquarella suffered a stroke in 1980, his daughters stepped in. Roxanne held down the fort while Renee graduated from Florida State University in Tallahassee. But there wasn't much question they wanted to keep the business going.
'One of the things we knew as we took over was that Frankie's was his first baby and his first love,' says Roxanne. 'I was his second child. Renee was his third. We knew we would keep it going.'
Their father recovered slowly and before long was back at the restaurant, making pizza boxes faster with one hand than anyone else who used two. The family went on to weather everything from the startling growth of the neighborhood to the winds of Hurricane Andrew, leaning on their father's unstoppable work ethic to power them through.
'When I reflect back it was stressful,' Roxanne admits. 'But we just pulled together and started working. 'OK, we don't have power, let's get a generator.' 'We have gas ovens so we can work.' We improvised. When life threw us curve balls, we scooped them up and kept going.'
'He was a good leader. If I burned the pizza, he'd say, 'Next time you'll get it right,'' Renee says.
Pasquarella went on to inspire a book, 'A Love Affair with Frankie's Pizza' by local historian Cesar Becerra, who grew up eating Frankie's pizza and collected anecdotes about the restaurant (you can buy the book at the shop or at freerangepublishing.com/frankies).
The author of 'Robert is Here: Looking East for a Lifetime' about the popular Homestead fruit stand, Becerra, who also filmed a documentary about Pasquarella, calls Frankie's Pizza 'the last of old Miami.'
'In a city of constant change, there are few places like this left,' the Miami native says. 'It's a testament to doing things the right way. They could've taken a million different shortcuts, but they don't. The cheese is grated by hand — they could buy grated cheese. It takes nine hours to get the first pizza ready! Plus, when you're there, knowing there was once a tomato field on one side and the Everglades on the other is wild.'
Pasquarella's love for the restaurant and his community ran deep. When he died in 2005, three years after his wife, Renee told the Miami Herald: 'If he could be buried under the pizza shop, that's what he would want.' In 2010, Bird Road from 89th to 92nd Avenue was renamed 'Pasquarella Way,' in honor of the man who made a third child out of his business.
'He was a riot,' Becerra says. 'He was just funny as hell.'
Now in their 60s, Roxanne and Renee Pasquarella have been considering this milestone anniversary, sharing memories with their long-time customers and contemplating their own involvement in the business. Roxanne's son Christopher Patterson has shown interest in taking over at some point — 'I'm excited to see him do it so I step back and let him solve problems,' Renee says — but neither is quite ready to let go entirely.
Taking a day off here and there, though, sounds appealing.
'What's really interesting is that people want to buy our property all the time,' Renee says. 'I don't want to sit at home and eat bonbons all day. But as I've gotten older, I've learned to balance my life. Now that we have someone interested in overseeing things, I'll even go to the Keys for a couple of days. Things I wouldn't have done before.'
She recalls once working the late shift at Frankie's, changing her clothes and splashing on perfume, then leaving to go out with friends.
'I was standing in line to get in a club at 2 a.m. and somebody goes, 'I smell pizza,' ' she says. 'I wanted to die. In your 20s you're so embarrassed. But I got to spend a lot of time with my family here. I'm grateful for that. We were a unit, the four of us. When you have a business like this, you are so lucky.'
Frankie's Pizza
Where: 9118 Bird Road, Miami
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; closed Monday
More information: www.frankiespizzamenu.com or [phone]