Meet Dino Martire, owner of Papa Dino’s Pizzeria and Deli

Welcome back to Down the Boulevard, a new weekly feature on Hasbrouck Heights Patch where we ask the business owners in our town a few questions about their business and themselves. Get to know your business owners.

The philosophy behind the Martire family way of cooking and serving up good food has always been about two key ingredients – passion and consistency.

Dino Martire, owner of Papa Dino’s Pizzeria and Deli says his wife Josie has told him that his food tastes good because he cooks with passion. Always serving up the same good quality food day after day is why the other key ingredient, consistency, is also so important.

The Martire family opened the new pizzeria recently in Hasbrouck Heights at the location formerly known as Jersey Boys Deli on the Boulevard between Madison and Lasalle avenues. Martire, who has been in the restaurant business since the 1970s, said he wanted to gradually merge in the pizzeria and restaurant of his own vision with what was already there and therefore decided to continue operating the deli as part of his new eatery.

Cooking and managing a restaurant runs in Martire’s family. His father Alfredo opened Fort Lee Pizzeria in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee back in the 1970s. This led to the formation of Alfredo’s Restaurant which was located on Main Street in Fort Lee for about 20 years which Martire owned with his father and brother-in-law.

Martire said he and his wife decided to take a hiatus from the restaurant business and moved down to Florida. The neighborhood was beginning to change and it seemed like the right time to move on, he said.

They moved back to New Jersey to be closer to their grandchildren and they decided to get back into the restaurant business on a smaller scale. Martire said his wife knew Hasbrouck Heights well and he chose it as home for his new restaurant venture because it’s the kind of community he knows he can identify with and vice versa.

Much of what he knows about food and restaurants comes from his father Alfredo. “I owe a lot to my father,” he said.  His father was in the produce business in the earlier part of his career and Dino Martire picked up his ways of always scrutinizing perishable items to be sure to use only fresh ingredients.

Dino said he is now in the same role his father was when they opened Alfredo’s Restaurant years ago. Back then his father was grandfather to his children and now he is a grandfather to his children’s kids – and that is what led to the name of the shop: Papa Dino’s.

Martire said he hopes to make the place a staple in the community. He plans to host an official grand opening celebration in September.