1 hour ago
3
That’s a lot of clams.
Now they’re really cookin’ at Long Island’s celeb-fave Vincent’s Clam Bar — where the red sauce that keeps them in the black is about to be sold in jars up and down the East Coast.
“We can hand you the recipe,” restaurant manager Danny Pepi told The Post — before co-owner Bobby Marisi jumped in to add, “But you’ll never be able to come out with the same product.”
The sauce bosses at the staple Italian restaurant — a must-stop for celebrities from Don Mattingly to Shaquille O’Neal and Julie Andrews — have inked a deal with Walmart Neighborhood Market to sell their brand in the Carolinas and Florida come early 2026, following success down south in Virginia, after years of local popularity.
The product’s New York origins lend street cred in atypical red-sauce markets, according to Marisi.
Slow cooking
Vincent’s recipe stands out for its simplicity, minimal texture and “nothing green” dating back to 1904 at its original location at Mott and Hester streets in Little Italy in Manhattan.
“It began as people shucking clams and oysters on the street, pretty much the same way you’d have a hot dog cart today,” Marisi said.
Owners Giuseppe and Carmela Siano, who named the business after their little boy, needed something to pair with their seafood.
“You had to stretch dollars. So what they did was they decided to make a sauce, basically a paste, that is very thick and heavy, which you can get a lot of volume out of,” Marisi said.
They served the sauce mild, medium and extra hot and still do to this day in Nassau County.
Marisi said servers give customers a small test of the hot before allowing them to order it in full.
“There’s no point in killing your taste buds,” Pepi said.
He suggested that newcomers work their way up from mild to medium at the eatery — which also sells “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” shirts and gives free jars to customers celebrating birthdays.
Thinking outside the pot
Vincent’s expanded to Long Island in the 1980s. Its original Manhattan location is still operating but no longer affiliated.
The franchise eventually began selling jars of its sauce to locally based King Kullen supermarkets and incrementally moved further through New York and the tri-state area.
“It’s very smooth and luxurious — very full-bodied and very flavorful,” Marisi said of the sauce.
Former New York Islander hockey ace Billy Smith, plus ex-Yankees and Mets stars such as Mattingly, Tino Martinez, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter and Doc Gooden and NBA great O’Neal soon became hooked.
In addition to the sports stars, Hollywood A-listers have been dipping into the sauce, too — enough so that each table has several nameplates of famous customers, including Hillary Duff, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jordan Spieth and Ricky Henderson.
“We would mail it to Billy Joel’s office once a month over in Oyster Bay. Julie Andrews loved it, Chazz Palmenteri loved it when he was here,” Marisi said.
Long Island’s own Vito from the hit HBO series the “Sopranos,” a k a Joe Gannascoli, is another regular at the red-sauce joint that heats through 400 gallons a day.
People over the years have tried making an offer that Marisi couldn’t refuse to buy the recipe, but he shuts them down before they even blurt out an asking price.
Other know-it-all customers think they’ve figured out what makes Vincent’s sauce, which is also the base for the restaurant’s popular alla vodka, such a hit.
“Over the years, we’ve heard, ‘They put carrot juice in it. Oh, no, no, they put coffee grinds in it, Tabasco,’ ” Marisi said.
“We had one guy come in with his apron on, covered in sauce with a pot. ‘I know how to make this!’
“Buddy, you’re not even close.”
The actual legendary “lock and key” cooking process — where Marisi says the “magic” happens — is as sealed as the jars the sauce comes in.
“Only three people on Earth know, and you’re looking at two of them,” he said, adding that Marisi’s brother, co-owner Tony, is the third.
“We’re not even thinking about succession at the moment. … We’ve got a long way to go.”
English (US)