A Slice of Life: Bonvini's Pizza
It’s Friday night and the pizza orders are coming in fast. Behind the counter, members of the Bonvini family bustle around the kitchen, moving thin-crust pies in and out of the hot oven like clockwork. On the other side of the register, customers wait with big smiles, chatting about how happy they are that their takeout pizzeria is back in town. The Livingston folks, thin-crust aficionados, are used to picking up their pizza and heading out to enjoy it at home, in their car, in the park, or at a picnic table—it doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s in the box.
The story of Bonvini’s pizza is both simple and complex, old and new, woven into the history of Livingston, the Essex County town where the Bonvini family arrived many decades ago. It’s the kind of story lived out in countless neighborhood pizzerias across the Garden State, where “family” takes on new meaning and thin crust pizza recipes are as unique as the families that create them.
Walking into Bonvini’s in the 1970s, you encountered the warmth of Mr. Bonvini and his teenage sons, Nick and Marcello. They worked the metal pizza oven with shelves rotating like a Ferris wheel. You’d see the crusts getting crispy and the cheese browning just slightly, never burning, as the pies moved round and round.
You placed your order. Our family’s request never varied: large, thin crust. It didn’t need any extra toppings to rank on our “best” list. “Twenty minutes,” they said: the time it took to create your pie with fresh dough, sauce, and herbs. When the Bonvinis handed you your box, they brought you the rich heritage Mr. Bonvini imported from his home in Senigallia, Italy, a port town on the Adriatic coast.
That heritage extended beyond Nicholas Bonvini’s love for his wife and children, and to his “family” of customers in Livingston, a community that mourned when the pizzeria closed in 1998. Nick Jr. and Marcello, who had taken over, closed the business to devote attention to their young families. But they never closed their hearts
In November 2022, Marcello and his sister Tricia, along with other members of their extended family, reopened Bonvini’s.
THE EXPERIENCE IS MUCH LIKE IT WAS IN THE 1970S. THERE’S NO BIG FANCY DINING ROOM—HEAD TO THE COUNTER AND PICK UP YOUR ORDER.
Three generations of the Bonvini Family circa 1965. Photo courtesy of the family
(left)Marcello Bonvini; (lower right)photograph: Ray Painter
When news of the reopening hit Livingston, both old-timers and youngsters rejoiced.
Betsy Rynar, Livingston resident for over 60 years, couldn’t contain herself. “Have you heard? Bonvini’s pizza sold out on the first day! They reopened, right around the corner from where they used to be!”
The modern-day experience is much like it was in the 1970s. There’s no big fancy dining room—head to the counter and pick up your delicious order along with nostalgia, love, and memories.
As soon as Betsy told me Bonvini’s was back, I raced over for lunch with my friend Len Fariello from Whippany. We sat at the picnic table outside with our steaming pizza and eggplant parmigiana, and it was heaven.
“This tomato sauce is fresh and not too spicy!” Lenny said. “The thin crust is crispy, just the way I like it.” We savored the eggplant, too, baked with delicious tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, not breaded and fried. Delizioso! Squisito—Italian for scrumptious!
“When you take a bite and chew mindfully, you are truly in communion with all of life,” the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book How to Eat. I thought of those words when I bit into Bonvini’s thin crust. I was fully present with all my senses, smelling and tasting the tomato sauce, the bubbling cheese, and feeling the texture of the thin snappy crust. Everything else fell away.
In tasting it all, I felt grateful for the rain, the soil, the plants, the growers, the Bonvini family, and their heritage extending back to Senigallia, where many of their relatives still live.
Tricia Bonvini greeted the customers behind the counter one recent Saturday evening.
“The art of Italian food made fresh every day is in our blood,” she said. “We are showing our children, the new generation, how our family was built. My daughter works here now, and my nephews. They work hard. We want our family legacy to live on, and it will because of them.”
The pizzeria is open Tuesdays through Sundays and caters small parties. They offer Italian specialties, new and old, prepared fresh from scratch every day.
Head over, eat mindfully, and taste the good life: family, friends, food, and community.
Bonvini’s
127 S. Livingston Ave., Livingston
973.500.3509
bonvinis.com
