Lombardozzi’s is for sale, a sign of Bloomfield’s ever-shrinking Little Italy
Longtime classic Lombardozzi’s Restaurant in Bloomfield is up for sale.
In Pittsburgh’s evershrinking Little Italy section, the restaurant opened in 1973, across from West Penn Hospital.
Listed for $1.075 million, the sale includes the building, at 4786 Liberty Ave., as well as the restaurant and its liquor license, business broker and Lombardozzi family friend Phil Luciano said last week.
Lombardozzi’s, in an area that counts just one still-standing Italian stalwart, 81-year-old Pleasure Bar, has remained closed throughout the pandemic.
“I’ve known Tony since 1982,” Luciano said, referring to current owner Anthony Lombardozzi. “I had a restaurant just five doors down from his.”
That was Luciano’s Cafe, which Luciano said he sold in 1987.
“We always talked and saw each other on the avenue. It was Little Italy.”
Indeed. In a Dec. 28, 1973, restaurant review, which ran in the Post-Gazette, writer Geoffrey Tomb noted that, with the addition of Lombardozzi’s Restaurant (then with an accompanying "and Lounge”), Bloomfield’s Italian eatery scene was heating up:
“Like the competition between the Long Branch and the Silver Dollar saloons in Western movies, the Pleasure Bar and Del’s
Hotel have stood eying each other in Bloomfield. sides for of years Liberty Minor from Avenue opposite competitors landscape, dot the neighborhood mostly serving a local clientele that does not appreciate the outsiders and the hospital people who crowd into the two major rivals. But now a third restaurant has chosen to enter the big-time fray for the pasta championship of Bloomfield and a battle is simmering.” Del’s Bar and Ristorante DelPizzo closed in 2015. Luciano said he’s been marketing to local Italian restaurants. “Hopefully, we’ll get another Italian restaurant,” he said.