John's of Bleecker Street

The story

The oven runs at 850 degrees, and no one will sell you a single slice. Founded in 1915 by Filippo Milone — not, as long believed, by John Sasso in 1929 — John's of Bleecker Street has been quietly correcting its own mythology for over a century. Sasso, related to Milone by marriage, took over in 1925 and gave the place his name. The wooden booths still carry every name of every patron willing to carve one in. That accumulation of small marks is, in its way, the whole point.