Lawrence Longo Wants Prince St. Pizza to Taste Like SoHo Everywhere
Observer ·
The Best Buddy Hospitality founder talks about the slice that changed his life, why every shop uses New York City water and the most persistent man in the restaurant business.
Lawrence Longo wants to build America’s next great national pizza brand. A 2019 pop-up in Los Angeles showed him the demand for Prince St. Pizza, the New York slice shop founded by Frank Morano , and he has since taken it across the U.S. and Canada, from Las Vegas’s Durango casino-resort to Toronto. Six locations opened in the past year, in Baton Rouge, Nashville, Brooklyn, Miami, Dallas and T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. That brings Prince St. to 21 locations and more than $50 million in projected annual revenue, Longo told Observer. To keep scaling, he partnered with Lawrence Kourie , the founder and largest franchisee of Dave’s Hot Chicken. In May, a Disney collaboration that recreated Little Nero’s Pizza from Home Alone won a Clio Award.
Prince St. anchors Longo’s Best Buddy Hospitality. Longo also revived Irv’s Burgers, the West Hollywood burger stand founded in 1946, and has taken it to three Las Vegas locations: Durango, Miracle Mile and, in July, Green Valley Ranch. He runs Bar Next Door on the Sunset Strip, No. 4 on Food & Wine’s 2026 list of the top 10 bars in the U.S., and Sparky’s Sports Bar in Malibu. With pastry chef Bradley Ray, formerly of Eleven Madison Park, he built Henry’s Secret Ice Cream, which sells about 2,000 pints a week in drops that regularly sell out in minutes. He also co-created Tenderfest, a chicken-tender festival that drew 10,000 people across sold-out events in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Longo grew up in an Italian family in Toronto, came to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood and got into restaurants through Off the Menu, the app he founded around secret menu items at popular restaurants. Some in L.A. still remember him as the man who ate a burger every day in 2018. Longo, a 2026 Nightlife & Dining Power List honoree, talked to Observer about the slice that changed his life, protecting the original recipe and the location his lawyer told him not to open.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Spicy Spring changed my life. One bite into that slice and I was hooked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Sean Avery, the former New York Rangers player, introduced me to Dominic Morano. We became friends, and in 2018 I asked him if he wanted to do a Prince St. Pizza pop-up with me on National Pizza Day in 2019. After its success, I pitched Frank Morano the idea of opening a Prince St. Pizza in Los Angeles. He said yes, as long as we don’t change the recipe and never lose the human touch.
When I first started expanding Prince St. Pizza outside of New York, one of the non-negotiables from the original founders was that we had to use New York City water . Whether New York water actually makes pizza better or it’s one of the great myths of New York pizza, the reality is that water is an ingredient. And if we’re going to replicate the exact same pizza across the country, why would we change even one ingredient? So we invested in specialized water systems designed to replicate New York City’s water composition in every shop.
We never conducted formal side-by-side tests, but for me, it was never about proving the myth. It was about protecting the original recipe. Whether you’re eating a slice in Manhattan, Los Angeles or Las Vegas, I want that experience to be exactly the same.
Baton Rouge was the biggest surprise, because it’s a different type of market than we are used to operating in. Miami has been the biggest struggle.
First off, he’s the most persistent person in the whole world. He called me every single day. He’s also become one of the most successful Dave’s Hot Chicken franchisees, and everyone I asked about him raved about him, even the people he has fired.
I’ve always had a soft spot for places like Irv’s: the kind of neighborhood burger stand where generations of families have made memories, where the staff knows your name and where the food brings people together. When I had the opportunity to revive Irv’s, I felt a real responsibility to protect that history. Irv’s has been part of Los Angeles since 1946, serving everyone from neighborhood regulars to rock legends like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. My job was to preserve that magic while introducing it to a new generation. You can expand a restaurant’s footprint, but you should never outgrow its soul.
I first tried Brad’s ice cream during the pandemic, when he was running the ice cream program at Antico Nuovo. It was hands down the best ice cream I’d ever tasted. When we opened Prince St. Pizza in Los Angeles, I had leased the entire block and needed to figure out what would complement pizza best. The obvious answer was cocktails and ice cream. We created The Bar Next Door, and I reached out to Brad about ice cream. He proceeded to ghost me for two years!
When he finally responded, I pitched him on building an ice cream company together. But I wanted to build a cult following before opening a physical shop, so I developed a limited weekly drop model to create demand and build the brand organically. The strategy worked. We’ve now signed a lease on a larger space in Beverly Hills, with plans to open next year.
Because who doesn’t love a great chicken tender? It’s one of the few foods that transcends age, culture and demographics. Everyone has a favorite, everyone has an opinion on the perfect dipping sauce, and everyone thinks they know who makes the best one. I think the secret is simple: We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take our chicken tenders very seriously.
It started as marketing, but it’s quickly becoming a second business. I’ve always believed that restaurants should be more than places to eat. They should be brands people want to engage with, even when they’re not hungry. With Delivering Happiness , we took something as ordinary as a pizza delivery driver, put Nick Turturro behind the wheel and built a comedy series around it. Now we’re working with TikTok and iHeartMedia to bring it to a much bigger audience. My background is actually in entertainment, so in many ways, this is bringing my two worlds together.
The ultimate goal is to make content so entertaining that people forget it’s marketing. That’s when you know you’ve built something bigger than a pizza company.
I almost walked away from our Prince St. Pizza in DTLA because my lawyer tried to tell me nobody lives in the Arts District. It’s our second-highest-grossing location.
Pizza or burgers, whichever is closer.
Honor Bar. I love that place.
See all of Observer’s 2026 Nightlife & Dining Power List honorees.