CORRECTION: This article quotes Justino Alioni as saying the 9th Ave Justino’s location was due to a pipe burst in the basement on March 12. In fact, city health records show that the pizza shop was closed due to multiple health violations — including the presence of live roaches as of March 19.
According to city health records for the establishment, inspectors found evidence of rats and live roaches in the restaurant’s food or non-food areas on March 12. They also found multiple violations relating to the storage of food at safe temperatures.
Contacted for additional comment, Alioni denied the restaurant was infested by rats or roaches and repeated that violations were due to a burst water pipe. He claimed city health inspectors approved the restaurant on March 26.
The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene website does not have a record of an inspection after March 19. A representative from the city’s Department of Health and Hygiene was not immediately available for comment.
The 9th Avene Justino’s location is still closed as of March 27, while city records show the 10th Avenue location passed an inspection with an “A” rating on March 10.
The owner of the 9th Avenue Justino’s Pizza location said on March 25 that the store will reopen soon, more than a week after the store closed for maintenance due to a burst water pipe.
Justino Alioni, the owner of the multi-location pizza franchise, said that he hopes to reopen the location as a franchise of La Rosa Chicken & Grill. He said that the deal, while not official yet, is in the works.
There are “a lot of moving parts,” Alioni said. But he said that he was “almost there.”
Students still said they were sad to see a neighborhood business close, even if for a little bit. Alioni said students should not worry — he hopes to reopen after he receives the all-clear from city health inspectors.
“Don’t be concerned,” Alioni said.
Alioni said that, as the plan has been developing since the beginning of the year, he saw the pipe burst as more of a happy accident than anything. “It’s not that I wanted to switch,” he explained, but the close proximity of his two Upper West Side pizza locations was hurting business.
“I needed a change in January, anyway,” he said. Alioni added that students wanting pizza can still eat at his other location on 10th Avenue.
“It’s cheap pizza. It’s pretty good. It’s worth the extra walk.” Matthias Lai, FCLC ’25
Alioni, 52, said that the pipe burst happened the morning a city official arrived for a routine health inspection. Despite the unfortunate turn of events, Alioni was able to laugh about his bad luck.
“When the health inspector came, I said, ‘do you pray that something happens the same day you guys show up?’” Alioni said.
According to Alioni, the burst was inevitable due to the age of the building.
“100-year-old-pipes — something is going to go wrong sometime,” Alioni said.
Alioni explained that repairs take time. In the decades he has spent in the pizza business, he has not seen a situation quite like this one, “but it happens,” Alioni said.
The 9th Avenue location is just three blocks south of Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, drawing consistent patronage from students. Alioni’s other Upper West Side location is one avenue west on 10th Avenue, halfway between West 57th Street and West 58th Street.
“It feels a little disappointing for Fordham students.” Xavier Urena, FCLC ’27
The evening of March 12, Matthias Lai, Fordham College Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’25 and a former opinions editor at The Observer, noticed the locked storefront after a late night on campus.
Lai said that he saw the “lights were off and there was no one home. I just wanted something to eat. Everything on campus was closed, so I went to Justino’s.”
“I was a little confused because it was 10 p.m. and they’re usually open till 1 a.m.,” Lai said.
Lai said that Justino’s was a mainstay in the Fordham neighborhood, and the closure of one location would not deter him from venturing to the other spot close by.
“It’s cheap pizza. It’s pretty good. It’s worth the extra walk,” Lai said.
“100-year-old-pipes — something is going to go wrong sometime.” Justino Alioni, owner of pizza restaurant franchise
Other Fordham students, like Xavier Urena, FCLC ’27, have never eaten at the pizza shop. Regardless, he said it was sad to see a local business close temporarily.
“It feels a little disappointing for Fordham students,” Urena said.
Alioni, is the owner of four Justino’s Pizza locations, with three in Manhattan. Two of the Manhattan locations are close to campus on the Upper West Side, and the other is in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. They all don the same iconic sign: big yellow bold italic letters spell “Justino’s,” looking as if the signs are filled with bright Hollywood lights. The southern location is situated beside a hopping alley. The narrow walkway, lined with red brick walls, is covered with a web of string lights that evokes the drying lines of linens that populated Manhattan throughout the nineteenth century.
Like his storied locations, Alioni has a committed history to the pizza game as an owner for three decades — and as a baker for even more.
Alioni said he was the “second-fastest” pizza maker in the continental United States at the age of 13 while he was working at Domino’s Pizza. He said he consistently pumped out a pizza every 11 seconds.
Alioni turned to pizza after being disillusioned by higher education. His brothers had gone to college, but he was on a different path.
“I knew I wasn’t going to go to college. I had got to do something else,” Alioni said.
When he turned 18, he bought his first deli. It cost him $40,000. At that time, he was also working as a fill-in postal carrier.
“I worked in every post office in Brooklyn. I used to bounce around,” Alioni said.
Soon, he took up a third job at a friend’s pizza shop but began to feel the strain of working three jobs. Eventually, he made up his mind to go all in on the food businesses and bought his first pizzeria for $30,000 in Staten Island.
The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on Alioni and his businesses in the early 2020s. He told this publication in the summer of 2020 that it felt as though “everybody has left the city — no one is around anymore.”
“Not knowing when it’s going to be back to normal, or back to open … not knowing, that’s the biggest problem,” Alioni told The Observer in 2020. “We don’t know what to do: surrender or hang in there.”
Alioni had recently opened another location in Lower Manhattan on Fulton Street, just two months before the pandemic shut down New York City. Eventually, he had to shed it.
“During the pandemic, I could only hang in there so much,” Alioni said.
Alioni’s sprawl of franchises has contracted through the years. He said at his peak, he was overseeing 12 locations. Now, he has four. His Staten Island location is on Guyon Avenue near the Oakwood Heights Staten Island Railroad stop. Even so, he spoke of his career and accomplishments with pride. He said he still works hard, moving from his multiple locations across the boroughs throughout the day.
Even late at night on Monday, he cheerily sat down to his “breakfast.” He was, after a packed day, having his first slice.
