Prince Street Pizza, run by Frank and Dominic Moreno, is one of the most popular pizzerias in New York City with 4.5 stars on Yelp Reviews. Recently, however, racist comments from both owners against the Asian and Black community started to resurface on the internet. A couple of years ago, the restaurant was found to be replying aggressively and inappropriately to customers who complained about them in Yelp Reviews. Screenshots of their now-deleted replies reappeared, in which the restaurant called customers slurs including "mutt," "mongrel," "yellow dog" and a "disgrace" to the Asian community.
In 2016, Dominic Moreno posted a problematic video on Facebook of BLM protestors getting hit by a car with a caption that reads “Why do BLM and other protestors cross the road? To get run over by angry drivers” as a ‘joke.’ Matthew Famularo, Condé Nast designer, confronted Moreno about his racist post via Instagram, Moreno replied with a meme that says “You found it offensive? I found it funny. That’s why I am happier than you.” Racists like Moreno find such ‘jokes’ funny when they are insensitive and harmful to minorities.
Joe Rosenthal, a food blogger, recently exposed screenshots of Prince Street Pizza owner’s other racist and insensitive comments via their Instagram stories. Ever since that, Prince Street Pizza received heavy backlash from social media.
On January 8, 2021, Prince Street Pizza published a statement on their social media and website addressing the backlash and apologizing for their past actions. "Our actions in the past in addressing negative customer concerns have fallen short and were extremely inappropriate. What we said and how we behaved was wrong then, is wrong today, and will always be wrong. We truly apologize and empathize for the hurt we caused in these incidents and apologize to all of our Prince Street Pizza customers," the statement said. It also revealed that “Frank and Dominic Morano are stepping down from day-to-day operations”. “There is nothing okay about the comments I made on Yelp,” said Frank Morano in the statement. “I take full responsibility and wholeheartedly apologize to our customers, especially our Asian community. All of our customers are family to us, and you deserve so much better. I am stepping down because it’s the right thing to do.”