Santarpio's is a restaurant in the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of East Boston. A landmark

Landmark

This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...

 to locals and a destination for out-of-towners, the eatery is primarily known for its East Coast/American-style pizza

Pizza

Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc-shaped bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings.Originating in Italy, from the Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many parts of the world. An establishment that makes and sells pizzas is called a "pizzeria"...

, which it has served in the same location since 1933. Established in 1903 as a bakery, Frank Santarpio began selling pizza three decades later. One Boston Globe reporter said of the establishment that "[t]he average New Englander's only knowledge of East Boston is the sign for Santarpio's Pizza that can be seen from the highway on the way to the airport."

Founded and still owned and operated by the Santarpio family, the restaurant was one of the original pizzerias that opened to cater to Italian-Americans who had emigrated to cities in the northeastern United States. Besides several varieties of pizza, Santarpio's menu

Menu

In a restaurant, a menu is a presentation of food and beverage offerings. A menu may be a la carte – which guests use to choose from a list of options – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is served....

 offers only two other items: Barbecued lamb and sausage

Sausage

A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat , mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made...

.

For a long time, part of the restaurant's charm was that the atmosphere

Atmosphere

An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...

 was unadorned, except by boxing

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 posters, and the waiters were not overly helpful. Today that has moderated to some degree, and even the baby-food

Baby food

Baby food is any food, other than breastmilk or infant formula, that is made specifically for infants, roughly between the ages of four to six months to 2 years. The food comes in multiple varieties and tastes, can be produced by many manufacturers, or may be table food that the rest of the family...

 jars that once held crushed red pepper

Capsicum

Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Its species are native to the Americas where they have been cultivated for thousands of years, but they are now also cultivated worldwide, used as spices, vegetables, and medicines - and have become are a key element in...

 have been replaced by more conventional containers.

The restaurant's staff are also memorable for their manner and their longevity. Jeff Kalligheri, an East Boston native who heads Dolce Vita Productions, remarked, "Santarpio's staff, they're the real actors of East Boston," after the eatery refused to fill an order from the Bachelor No. 2 production when the crew insisted that the 75-pie order be ready in an hour. Glenn Carlton has baked bread and prepared dough for the pizzas at Santarpio's for thirty years. Lennie Timpone, whose mother was a Santarpio, was born in 1945 and has worked at the Chelsea Street location all his life.