Frederickson worked in the corporate world. He was going into management at Federal Express when he decided to leave there to open his own business.
“I was sick of the corporate world and could not do it anymore,” Frederickson said.
He wanted to open a New York-style pizzeria but had no formal training in Italian cooking.
Frederickson, a German-American, reached out to Bart Lubrano, his sister’s Italian-American father-in-law, for guidance. Lubrano lived in Brooklyn and owned five successful New York pizzerias. Lubrano and his wife, Amelia, flew to Ohio and taught Frederickson and his staff to make pizza and other Italian dishes in the kitchen and provided them with recipes.
Fratelli means “brothers” in Italian, and fittingly, the restaurant is a family business.
Frederickson’s four children keep busy at the restaurant — Cailyn Frederickson, his daughter, is a manager and Joey, his son, is a GM/co-owner of the restaurant. His other two children, Rebecca Frederickson and Brian Frederickson used to work for the business.
“It’s great,” he said of working with family. “We all hang out together here. We’re here a lot. It’s a lot of bonding time.”
Fratelli’s Pizza offers appetizers, calzones, chicken parmesan meals, eggplant parmesan meals, New York-style pizzas, pasta dinners, salads, and sandwiches. It serves fountain drinks, bottled drinks, draft beer, bottled beer and red and white wine.
The restaurant produces standard and specialty pizzas, such as Madison Square Garden, The Craiger and Hawaiian. The New Yorker, a pepperoni, sausage and green onion pizza is the best-seller. The best-selling non-pizza menu items are cheesesteaks and homemade meatball parm sandwiches.
Frederickson hopes to franchise his business in the future. He said what makes it unique is “Nobody uses the baker pride ovens, the deck ovens, anymore.
“They are all conveyor. And you just don’t get the same product. Our pizza is labor intensive. Everyone tries to do a quick pizza through a conveyor belt. We have to spin everything and watch them cook. It is a little more time-consuming,” he said.
Frederickson said he’s proud of his business and invites people who haven’t had it yet to give it a try.
“I like them to come try an old-fashioned New York-style pizza that was made different from any pizza parlors locally. We are a unique pizzeria, a genuine New York-style pizzeria.”
How to go
What: Fratelli’s Pizzeria
Where: 6890 Tylersville Road, West Chester Twp.
Online: fratellispizzeria.com
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