Miami’s Cult-Favorite Pizza Pop-Up Fratesi's Gets a Permanent Downtown Home
Written by Eric Barton | July 15, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
After years of selling out on Sundays and building a cult following one vodka pie at a time, Fratesi’s Pizza has finally settled down. The paper-thin bar pies that once disappeared in minutes behind Over Under now have a permanent home at 69 E. Flagler Street, in the former sneaker shop between Over Under and Tâm Tâm.
The space feels like a time capsule from a cooler era of pizza—booth seating, stained-glass light fixtures, and pitchers of beer, all laid out in what the owners call “strip-mall chic.” There’s no delivery. You either call in and pick it up yourself or grab a booth and stay a while. It’s an intentional throwback, built for the kinds of people who remember when pizza wasn’t supposed to be fancy.
Founders Chris Fratesi and Brian Griffiths designed the place to be the opposite of a hype machine. It’s walk-in only, a little chaotic, unapologetically loud, and already drawing the same crowd of off-shift cooks, bartenders, and people who know a good pie when they taste one. They’ve expanded the menu just enough—there are Italian ice options now, plus a few starters—but kept the focus on what made them famous: blistered bar pies with barely-there crusts and toppings that melt into the cheese.
The signature pies remain: the Demon Pig Boy, a spicy pepperoni bomb laced with pickled hot peppers; the Vodka Bro, creamy and punchy without being cloying; and their sausage-and-pepper combo, which tastes like it belongs in a Midwestern tavern during football season. What makes them sing isn’t just the heat or the nostalgia, but the execution—cheese spread right to the edge, crust that stays crisp, and portions that vanish before you remember to share.
It’s a recipe Fratesi worked on not only in his pop-up but a stint in New York city. There, he helped create a permanent location for a similarly popular pop-up, Chrissy’s, which lost none of its buzz by confining itself between four walls.
Downtown’s Flagler corridor is still in flux, but Fratesi’s feels like a step toward the neighborhood finally getting some stability. It’s not a concept dreamed up in a branding meeting or a coastal import with a five-year lease. It’s two guys who figured out what Miami was missing and built it, brick by brick, booth by booth, pie by pie.
