Yale students, staff and alumni are mourning the loss of a beloved New Haven pizza place, long known as Naples, where generations of fans carved their names into its thick, wooden tables for posterity.
For more than 70 years, the family-owned hangout was a favorite for flirtatious study breaks, team celebrations and late-night pontificating, with thin-crust pies and big plastic pitchers of beer. It closed late last month, with its owner saying sadly it was time to go.
“With changes in our personal life, it is time for us to step away from the demanding schedule of running a seven-day-a-week restaurant,” owner Celso Marrichi said in a statement released by Yale University, landlord of the property. Mr. Marrichi, who bought the business just over 10 years ago and renamed it Wall Street Pizza, couldn’t be reached for further comment.
Devotees had plenty to say.
“It’s a travesty,” said Edward Rugemer, associate professor of history and African-American studies.
He remembers construction workers coming for lunch and top scholars holding court. He loved eating there with professor David Blight, who won a Pulitzer Prize this year for his biography, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.”
Actress Jodie Foster, singer Mick Jagger, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and President Clinton dined there as well, according to the New Haven Register. Some regulars speculated the business suffered from the loss of customers when campus quieted down over the summer as well as increased competition as the area gentrified, with hip new coffee shops springing up.
The restaurant’s slices weren’t known as the best in a city that takes its pizza very seriously, with decades of debate over the relative merits of the local stars, known as Sally’s and Pepe’s. The campus outpost drew crowds for its warm atmosphere and convenience. Students watching hockey games at the ice rink a half-mile away used to tackle the “Wall Street challenge”— sprinting there during breaks in play to wolf down a pie, chug a pitcher of beer and run back for the next period.
The place saw plenty of other high jinks as well. “It brings back memories that I really wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing in public, which is probably why it’s such an important institution,” said Ken Zimmerman, a civil-rights attorney from the Class of 1982. He contrasted it to Mory’s, an elite club near campus where members swilled trophy cups full of alcohol, saying “Naples was the quintessential college pizza place.”
Howard Forman, a Yale School of Management professor of health care economics, took to Twitter to express his disappointment at the spot’s demise. For more than 20 years he ordered pizza there for his students at the end of semesters, timed for when they filled out evaluations of his instruction. “I’ve probably bought over 1,000 pies,” he said. “That was my go-to place.”
Samantha Pohly, a Yale freshman from New York City, said her parents met each other for the first time at Naples when they were students back in the early ‘90s. “I ate there with my parents, in the same booth,” she said. They searched in vain for their initials on the table.
“I hope whatever goes there,” she added, “is beneficial to the Yale community and has a lot of local flair.”
Write to Leslie Brody at leslie.brody@wsj.com
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