A Trip to Grimaldi's In California
Recently, I found myself in Southern California for some meetings and as one is wont to do, we ended up at a pizza place. This place wasn't a local outlet, however. It was one of the outposts of the Grimaldi's Coal-Fired Oven 'chain'. I say 'chain', because I didn't know it was a chain. I've read and heard all about Grimaldi's and Patsy's (and presumed they were one and the same!) and have recently dug around to understand the current dynamics and who *exactly* is behind this current Grimaldi's. Turns out Patsy Grimaldi founded Grimaldi's, but then sold that place to a dude back in 1998. Patsy is still in the pizza biz, but under another name. From GrubStreet : Christening a restaurant is never simple. But the question of what Patsy Grimaldi would call his new pizzeria was further complicated by the fact that he was legally barred from following the long-standing tradition of just naming it after himself. He couldn’t call it