March 30, 2021
After 40 years, Mr. Dino’s Pizzeria, and owners Angelo and Pasquale Loconsole, deserve a celebration for not just surviving but thriving while serving local customers and weathering Montclair’s difficult year. The crew at Mr. Dino’s would love to throw the biggest, most delicious, pizza-laden party the town has seen. But: Global Pandemic. Even so, the four decade milestone will be celebrated, if not with the same crowds and group fanfare originally hoped.
A great many Montclair-area residents have warm and tasty memories dating back to Mr. Dino’s first location on the corner of North Fullerton and Watchung. The jukeboxes and wooden bucket seats in the original pizzeria had stories to tell of family joys and drama, teenagers planning parties, and Mr. Dino’s patriarch, Nicola Lonconsole, peeling potatoes and bossing his sons Angelo and Pasquale around the pizzeria.