Owners of Krave It in Bayside set
to open new location in Astoria
A Bayside-based pizza and sandwich joint is expanding
22 MAY 2 0 2 1
Photo courtesy of Krave It
west into Astoria.
On Tuesday, April 27, Vishee Mandahar and his
wife Jenna celebrated the opening of their second
Krave It outpost at 36-18 30th Ave., in the former
Queens Comfort location.
The pair first opened their flagship store on Bell
Boulevard back in 2015 and made waves with their
“fresh, never frozen” take on comfort foods like pizzas,
sandwiches and salads.
Much like its predecessor, the Astoria Krave It will
feature fun and innovative dishes that made them favorites
with foodies across New York City, including
the Mac-Tastic Pizza with a four-cheese macaroni and
cheese blend with chipotle aioli and cilantro and
The Blvd Sub complete with a chicken cutlet in root
beer honey barbecue sauce, smoked bacon, melted
cheddar and arugula.
In addition to their classics, Krave It’s new location
will debut its Birria Pizza, based on the popular Mexican
tacos from Jalisco. The restaurant’s take on birria
will be served atop pizza with a homemade consomme
for dipping. The Mandahars dish is inspired by
an authentic recipe for birria tacos and consomme
but with their signature Krave It twist.
Krave It Astoria will be open from Sunday through
Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight. Customers can
make pick-up and delivery orders until 11:40 p.m.
through Krave It’s website (kraveitbayside.thefastbite.
com) or app (Krave It), and other platforms like
Grubhub, Seamless, DoorDash and UberEats.
FOOD + DRINK
Legends of LIC
The ‘Mayor’
BY GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Frank Carrado — known as Frankie, or with some
friends, Butch — was a timeless fixture in Long Island
City, a bit like PS1, the Courthouse or the LIC
Post Office. Like them, he was a local institution.
Unlike them, however, he had a chair reserved for
his use at the local precinct.
Frankie was known as the “mayor of Long Island
City,” a constant in the neighborhood while
mayors and elected officials would come and go,
and policies would be announced and replaced.
Through the years the mayor was always there, camera in hand, ready
to greet everyone from celebrities to the average guy on the street.
Everyone knew Frankie and wanted to take a picture with him. He had
a stack of those photos, and among his friends, he would go through
the list ensuring that each person was listed properly by name.
He said that when he died he wanted them to be there, if only as a
photo, to pay their last respects.
The “mayor” was a direct link to Long Island City’s legendary past, born
when many residents were still around who fondly recalled the real Mayor
Gleason, the ferry to “the city” and the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad.
The only boy among sisters, his first “job” was helping a friend “coal heaving”
from the rail cars parked just over a fence from his friend’s backyard.
His gang shoveled it down a homemade ramp into piles of 3 or 4 feet
and peddled it around the neighborhood for a few pennies a sack. It
kept food on the table.
And there was the affair of everyone in the community getting new
footwear after shoe boxes regularly “fell off” freight trains — that is
until the yard masters got wise and consigned future shipments for
right or left feet only.
Frankie, son of Italian immigrants, would tell stories of guys he drove
around the neighborhood and through Brooklyn “running numbers”
and selling fireworks, and the fate of guys who use pinball machines
without permission. He showed pictures of underground rooms that few
knew filled with heaven knows what.
He recounted an uneventful evening when he was a night watchman
for a Newtown Creek warehouse, and a limo showed up in the
wee hours of the night. A well-dressed gentleman he knew stepped
out and gave him a large bill and said to use it to buy himself a very
long lunch. He was a regular at prize fights.
Frankie also told of reports from home about his father, gravely
ill, getting him pulled from the front lines during the Korean War to
come home. His father pulled through. In Frankie’s absence, his unit
was attacked and all but annihilated by North Koreans.
Frankie was both a good husband and a good father. He lived
to see his grandchildren. When his wife died, his world changed.
He bought a camera and devoted his life to his community, taking
hundreds of pictures, forever freezing for posterity the transition of
his world to our future.
In April 2019, Frankie passed away at age 89. His chair at the precinct
awaits his return.
BY JENNA BAGCAL
@JENNA_BAGCAL
Greater Astoria Historical Society
44-02 23RD ST. #219
LONG ISLAND CITY, NY 11101
INFO@ASTORIALIC.ORG / WWW.ASTORIALIC.ORG
718-278-0700
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