I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, an endless maze of row-houses with pizzerias and Italian deli’s seemingly on every corner. I spent my first eighteen years in the same row-house on the same street in a neighborhood called ”Lower Mayfair.” My favorite memories consist of a Phillies or Eagles game, and where we ate before or after the games. The long drives to other areas of the city for the best pizza, cheesesteak, meatballs, or pork sandwich, would later inspire me to have the “best of everything, under one roof.”
As long as I can remember, my life centered around food. A Sicilian neighbor, an older woman, befriended my mother, and I can remember making meatballs and red gravy in her kitchen… It was in this very same kitchen I first made a Stromboli. She would insist that a proper Stromboli is rolled, “never folded!” I overheard her telling my mother how very often, when she was growing up in Sicily, a Stromboli was their lunch and dinner. (Interesting side note: “Barron’s Food Lover’s Companion,” a well-respected text issued in Culinary Schools across the country, claims that the Stromboli is a “specialty of Philadelphia.” It doesn’t mention its Sicilian roots.)
As a teenager, I worked nights at an Italian Restaurant called “Lucia’s,” a Frankford Avenue fixture during the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. I learned from the locally famous chef, and although he was my boss for four years, we became friends after I joined the Navy following high school.
In the Navy, I traveled the United States and Europe. It broadened me in such a way. I was inspired to begin a writing career, and wrote a novel called “Gazpacho.” But writing and traveling, I still felt a void in my heart (and often my stomach). I missed the Philadelphia food. True, several chain-eateries claimed to have the authentic cheesesteaks or strombolis, but they never measured up. Why was it so difficult?
After serving nearly eight years in the Navy, it was time for me to pursue a writing career. My former boss and friend had moved from Philadelphia to Key West, and he offered to introduce me to a group of independent writers that were beginning a new film project. That was all I needed to hear, within a few weeks I had moved to the place Hemingway called home.
My dreams of rapid success rapidly fell apart. Yes, I latched on with several talented writers and independent filmmakers… But money was always an insurmountable obstacle. I was working part-time in a Key West pizzeria, when I realized how many “transplants” from the north had moved, like I did, to Key West. I was making pizza for New Yorkers, cheesesteaks for Philadelphians, and suddenly I had a following. Mr.Z’s was born!
I opened my doors at 501 Southard St., at the intersection of tourist-friendly Duval St., on April 2nd 2002. My goal was and is to make the best pizza, sandwiches, and stromboli that you’ve had since you left New York, Philly, or Sicily. No gimmicks, no frills. Just like home, with one exception: You don’t have to take long drives to get the best, because we’ve got “the best of everything, under one roof!”
-Mike Zielinski, Owner