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The Curcio's apparently run a pizza destiny with cheese of gold, based on how popular their parlor Sun-Ray Pizza was with passers-by as they advised Barstool Sports CEO Dave Portnoy with which style of pizza made the family famous.
Portnoy visited 440 Main Street in Little Falls and mistakenly ordered a thin "barstool" style pizza, but the family typically makes square Sicilian-style pizza, like their patriarchy and recently deceased founder Luigi— a native of Polla, Italy— learned from his mother Teresa and started making back when he opened the family's first pizza parlor on the boardwalk in Atlantic City in 1960.
"I cook by experience – by taste – by feel.” Luigi Curcio was known to say.
The entire family is known for that innate cooking ability.
The late Curcio got help from an uncle to get a job at Nabisco in Clifton while learning English in night school. After saving up to furnish an apartment her brought his wife and brothers over.
Soon after they opened the parlor in Atlantic City, then they opened a Sun-Ray Pizza parlor in Paterson, and about five years ago the family opened the location Portnoy visited.
Customers will travel to Sun-Ray Pizza from all over for this taste of Italy, sometimes based on the Curcio family's reputation alone. And perhaps that's what got Portnoy to stop by to hear this tale of the American Dream— a story he says he "loves to hear" at restaurants.
The tough pizza critic who never ranks a pizza above an 8 raved about the crust on both pizzas he tried—because yes he did end up eating two styles— giving the "barstool style" a 7.6 due to the sweet sauce and a 7.7 for the Sicilian, calling it a "classic." It scored a cumulative 7.7 on the One Bite app.
Click here to watch the full One Bite review.
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