Gun Joke Prompts Another Scandal For Famed Astoria Pizza Chef

ASTORIA, QUEENS — When Andrew Bellucci, the former face behind Soho's famed pizza joint Lombardi’s who was jailed for fraud in the '90s, returned to the New York City restaurant scene in 2020, he was focused on moving away from scandal and back to making great pizza.

Then he became embroiled in a decidedly 21st century drama on Instagram.

“Enjoy every pie as if it’s your last,” were the words emblazoned on a photo that Bellucci Pizza, on 30th Ave. near 28th St. in Astoria, posted on Instagram on April 15. It featured Bellucci holding a pizza with his wife standing behind him, holding a prop gun to his head.

“It got a lot more attention in the wrong way than what was the intention,” Bellucci told Patch, explaining that the photo was inspired by a sign he made several years ago while selling cannoli in Hawaii.

“I put up a sign that said ‘leave the gun and take the cannolis,’ which is out of The Godfather,” he said of the Hawaii sign, adding “it was extremely well-received, so much so that we sold more cannoli than we’d ever sold before.”

The latest pizza picture, which went up on Bellucci's business and personal account — he tagged his wife's handle in the latter in the hopes of getting her more followers — was not as well-received.

“I got a lot of likes on both accounts, and then somebody said it was in bad taste,” he said, noting that some people then started to comment that he was promoting gun violence.

“Maybe in the back of my mind I was trying to be a little provocative, but there’s a big difference between being provocative and promoting gun violence,” said Bellucci. “I can understand that there’s misinterpretation, but to say that I’m promoting gun violence? No."

Although the original posts and comments are no longer on his Instagram page, subsequent posts about the pizzeria in neighborhood threads and Facebook groups have routinely garnered nearly 100 or more comments, many of which include locals critiquing the social media posts.

"I’m a firearm owner and would NOT eat at a place that advertises like this. This ad reeks of bad judgement," wrote one commenter said on a thread right after Bellucci made the first Instagram posts.

In that same thread, several people question the content of the post considering the rise of gun violence in the U.S. — including the shooting of Duante Wright just days before Bellucci's post.

One local, who asked to remain anonymous since she chose to speak out against the post in a private Astoria Facebook group, told Patch that she was shocked by the callous use of a gun in the post, even though she assumed Bellucci meant it as a joke.

Based on her experiences of Astoria, she told Patch that the post is "at complete odds with the culture and values" of the area.

"I have no intention of eating there again. We don’t need his overpriced pizza if he doesn’t want to share the values of the community," she said.

After the negative reception, Bellucci, who told Patch it was "1,000 percent not my intention to offend [anyone]," took the post off of Instagram.

But, he kept a similar version up on Facebook, with limited commenting allowed for just his friends and family who “made positive comments” — including his business partner, Leo Dakmak, who Bellucci said told him “that’s a fun photo.”

“That’s sort of the reaction that I thought I’d get,” he said, adding that while he is “dismayed” by the reaction, because of Astoria’s usually supportive community, he thinks that people closest to him understand where he was coming from.

“[My wife] Angie thinks it’s a fun photo, Leo thinks it’s a fun photo, my family thinks it’s a fun photo, and that’s really what matters to me,” said Bellucci.

But some community members aren’t deterred by the post.

Athena Efter, an Astoria local, who lives right around the corner from the pizza shop, first learned about the post with the fake gun when she posted a supportive review of Bellucci’s on an Astoria Facebook group, and some people commented that they wouldn’t support the business because of their social media history.

Efter told Patch that she doesn’t think the post is “the wisest PR move,” and respect’s someone’s decision to not support the shop based on the photo, but thinks everyone should be allowed to “make a decision based on what you feel your conscience is telling you to do or not do.”

“If you want to enjoy a great slice, I think it’s a great pizza,” she said.

While he stands by his decisions, Bellucci doesn’t think he’ll post something like that photo online again — though he’s considering hanging the picture in his shop’s bathroom — since “it’s really a distraction from what I’m trying to do, which is make good pizza.”