Pizza is one of humanity’s great achievements. Not up for debate. And when someone decides to bring a proper New York-style pie to a Gulf Coast beach town with real ambition, the right response is to drop everything and pay attention.
Enter Frankie’s Pizza Parlor, the St. Pete Beach newcomer that’s been quietly running its walk-up pizza window since July 4th weekend, building hype the old-fashioned way: by actually being good. And starting this Friday, August 28, the full restaurant throws open its doors at 6340 Gulf Blvd., adjacent to The Luce, the new St. Pete beach hotel.
Frankie’s isn’t your average beach tourist trap. This is a checkered-tablecloth, sports-on-every-screen neighborhood joint from the team behind The Luce, built around the holy trinity of oversized NY-style pies, fresh pasta made in-house daily, and a 12-tap draft lineup spotlighting brews from America’s most iconic pizza cities. That includes a custom collaboration with 3 Daughters Brewing, yielding the Frankie’s West Coast IPA, brewed right there on the beach. Local pride levels: appropriately sky high.
The menu swings for the fences in ways that feel almost dangerously fun. There’s the Limone Dip, a pizza sando riffing on chicken piccata as a French dip, featuring crispy chicken, citrus ricotta, caramelized onions, capers, and lemon butter. There’s the Chicken Parmesan, finished tableside with molten mozzarella and parmesan, served for two, because some things should be witnessed. And then there’s the 1990s nostalgia angle, which runs through the whole place: Dunkerz (warm mini cookies with sprinkle frosting, clearly engineered to short-circuit your frontal lobe), and the Jules Freeze, a boozy spin on that orange-and-vanilla mall food court classic you haven’t thought about in 25 years. Truly, nostalgia has never been so dangerous.
On the cocktail front, there’s the Kickflip Negroni, the Roaming Fees Margarita, the Late Fee (a frozen espresso martini), and Frankie’s signature amaro-style old fashioned. No notes on those names.
Happy hour runs Thursday through Sunday from 3-6 pm. The restaurant is open seven days a week, 11 am – 10 pm, with 18 TVs ensuring every game stays in view.
St. Pete Beach now has a neighborhood sports bar where the pasta’s made fresh daily, the 1990s have been resurrected, and 18 TVs mean you’ll never miss a play. Frankie’s has figured out what the Gulf needed. Now someone just needs to tell the rest of Florida.
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Photo via The Luce
