WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES FEBRUARY 22, 2018 19
BUZZ
New owners revive an Ozone Park pizzeria
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
A longtime Ozone Park pizzeria
and restaurant has new owners,
a new look and a new menu —
but its identity remains the same.
Aldo’s Pizza & Restaurant held its
grand re-opening on Feb. 19 under the
leadership of Anthony and Joe Livreri,
brothers raised in Glendale who
also own Mr. Bruno’s Pizzeria in East
Elmhurst. They brought with them a
revamped menu with traditional Sicilian
fare and more than 30 varieties of
pizza, but upholding the Aldo’s name
was also a priority.
“It’s been here for so long and it’s got
such a good name,” Anthony Livreri
said. “I just wanted to bring the place
back up to what it was. It was in the
wrong hands for a short period of time.”
When the pizzeria’s namesake
owner, Aldo Calore, retired from the
business in 2014, the new management
made a mess of the place, he said.
When he went to see what the Livreri
brothers had done to renovate the
space, Calore said that he knew it was
in good hands once again.
“It’s beautiful. These guys know
what they’re doing,” Calore said.
“They do everything excellent and
they go out of their way to buy good
stuff , not cheap.”
Although the Livreri brothers have
been running Aldo’s since Jan. 2, the
dining room was under renovation
and was opened for the fi rst time at
the re-opening party on Monday, Feb.
19. The room was fi lled with Italian
cheer as friends and family members
came to congratulate the brothers on
their latest venture, eat from a buff et
of fresh entrees and drinks from the
updated bar.
The brothers describe their new
menu as simple and traditional, with
meals such as lamb chops, skirt steaks,
rib-eye steaks, a variety of fi sh, pasta
and a large selection of appetizers and
salads. The pizza menu is anything but
simple, however, with a brand-new,
26-foot showcase in the restaurant that
is stocked with everything from buffalo
chicken, Thai chicken, grandma,
upside down, cheese steak and rigatoni
vodka pies, to rice balls, paninis and
potato croquettes.
Above all, with many years of
experience and multiple successful
Joe and Anthony Livreri, owners of Aldo’s Pizza & Restaurant on Cross
Bay Boulevard in Ozone Park.
restaurants, the Livreri brothers
know that the people are the most
important thing. They used to own a
few places in New Jersey, but coming
back home made Joe Levriri realize
the biggest diff erence with their latest
location.
Photo by Ryan Kelley/QNS
“The people are diff erent in New
York,” said Joe Livreri. “New York
is New York; you can’t change it no
matter where you go. You could talk to
one person and talk to another person
and you feel like you’re at home, where
you’re supposed to be.”
Laser Bounce opens in Atlas Park
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
Aft er several weeks of anticipation,
guests of The Shops
at Atlas Park in Glendale can
fi nally experience everything that
Laser Bounce has to off er.
The play center featuring a fl oor
full of arcade games, infl atable bounce
houses and laser tag is offi cially open
to the public as of Friday, Feb. 16.
Co-owner Ryan D’Amico said that aft er
all the work put into the venue with the
hopes of opening in January, he is glad
that it fi nally happened.
“It took forever but we’re very relieved,”
D’Amico said. “We started to
see a lot of walk-in customers from
the mall right away, so it’s nice to have
the place alive.”
D’Amico added that several customers
told him they were eagerly
awaiting the grand opening and were
frequently checking the internet to
see if it had been announced yet.
The crowds throughout the weekend
were impressive, D’Amico said,
with the laser tag, virtual reality
A basketball game inside Laser Bounce, now open in the Shops at Atlas Park in Glendale.
game and 3-D simulator being the
main attractions. The virtual reality
game, made by the German
company Hologate, is the fi rst of its
kind on the East Coast, according to
D’Amico.
For now, the snack bar has a limited
menu of typical arcade foods
like pizza, popcorn and pretzels, but
D’Amico said it will soon have various
wraps, sandwiches and burgers
as well.
Photo by Ryan Kelley/QNS
Laser Bounce is located on the lower
level entrance from the parking garage
underneath Regal Cinemas in the Shops
at Atlas Park and is open from 10 a.m. to
10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, and from
10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
