Feb 6, 2017
Italy may be over 6,000 miles away, but for those hungering for food from the old country, Capish Pizza-ristorante in Le Roy delivers.
“I hear there are a lot of Italians living here, and that we can remind them what their grandparents how they used to cook in the old days,” said Jim Frascati, the location’s owner.
Capish will be serving pizza — both American and Italian style — and some authentic Sicilian dishes.
“Put my mom’s cooking to use,” joked Frascati, who moved over to the United States from Sicily with his family when he was 12.
The pizzeria’s signature pizza will be the Sfincione, a Sicilian thick pizza.
Capish will also carry other foods known by Italians such as arancini — stuffed rice balls coated with bread crumbs and deep fried. It will likewise offer bruschetta, or grilled bread with toppings, and and caponata, a Sicilian eggplant dish.
There will be tables inside able to seat up to 73 people.
Frascati put together the menu after taking people to Italy as a tour guide for 22 years and taking note of what everyone enjoys.
“I see what people like,” he said. “Pizza is never something they complain about. Italians can’t screw up that up. There might be a little difference in the taste because the dough is different but they say they love pizza in Italy. Pastas — nobody has ever complained about pasta.”
Capish has a wood fire brick oven which can cook a pizza in less than two minutes.
Frasscati explained the heat in the wood oven is much more intense than the traditional ovens used other pizzerias.
Frascati, who lives in Churchville, decided to open up in Le Roy after taking a drive through the countryside and ended up in the small town. He said a woman he was talking to said the building next to McDonald’s used to be a Pontillo’s.
“To make a long story short, I got in touch with the owner of the building,” he said. “We worked on a deal for the building. After that I went to work and renovated the entire building from top to bottom.”
The name for the business came when Frascati was struggling to come up with something Italian, considering both his last name and his given name, Giacomo.
Then he was thinking about naming it La Coffa Resturante after a type of Sicilian bag which used to be for feeding donkeys. As years progressed people like his father would use them to carry their lunch as they went to work in the fields.
“My daughter was like, ‘I don’t like it,” he said. “People don’t know what a la coffa is.’ So I was talking to a buddy of mine, and during the conversation he goes, ‘Capish?’” Which is where he got the idea to name the restaurant after the Italian-American slang word, to “understand.”
Capish Pizza-ristorante has been under the works since October. Frascati hopes to conduct its grand opening in two to three weeks.
Capish is located at 49 Main St. in Le Roy. For more information, visit its Facebook page or call (585) 768-1000.
