It was an offer he couldn't refuse.
One of the Big Apple's most notorious mob hotspots is shedding its street-smart reputation to become a halal Italian restaurant — thanks to a former pizza salesman who bought the business from its cash-strapped owners in December.
Sheik Ahsan Ali, 29, new owner of Aldo Pizzeria and Restaurant in Ozone Park, Queens, celebrated the grand reopening of his restaurant last week, but without the pork and alcohol that fueled some of the notorious underground gambling rings and 2 p.m. mafia lunches over the past six decades.
“There is a need for change because the demographics are changing,” Ali recently told the Post.
“We have a lot of immigrants, and not everyone eats because of certain things, like some people can't drink alcohol,” said Ali, who spent years working behind the counter at Aldo's.
“We have to change with the times.”
But even though everyone is welcome at Ali's, he pointed out that the gangsters who once used Aldo's as a hangout no longer will be.
Gambino crime boss Ronald Trucchio – known as “Ronny One Arm” because one of his arms was partially paralyzed – was a regular and told prosecutors that he even received a $72,000 salary from Aldo's before his arrest on racketeering charges in 2003, when Aldo's was in its original 101st Street location.
Vinny Asaro, who played a role in the 1978 Lufthansa heist that inspired “Goodfellas,” was also known to frequent this restaurant.
“It looked like a scene from a mafia movie that was directly filmed and never made it to the big screen,” a source said at the time.
In recent years, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has investigated possible illegal gambling at the Ozone Park restaurant and questioned whether City Councilman Eric Ulrich gave a government job to one of Aldo's co-owners under suspicious circumstances.
Ulrich brought Eric Adams to the restaurant, the then-mayoral candidate later made it his unofficial headquarters during his 2020 campaign. Aldo's even hosted the watch party for the ex-mayor's primary race, according to sources.
Ali claimed the restaurant's ties to the mafia were long dead — part of a larger Big Apple mafia culture that was dying out.
“I heard a lot of stories back then, but I never encountered anything, being in this place for so many years, their operations or anything like that,” said Ali, whose first shift at Aldo was in 2016.
“There is no more attachment from these people. I think times have changed.”
Although halal pizzerias can be found throughout the city, he said he believes his store is the first full Italian restaurant to be halal.
Ali said owning his own halal restaurant has been a dream of his for a long time – ever since he learned to mix dough under the guidance of original owner Aldo Calore.
He quickly rose to general manager, a position he held when brothers Anthony and Joe Livreri, who ran the store for a decade, were evicted in December for nonpayment of rent.
With the legendary name “Aldo's” – which Ali estimates to be worth $1 million – and the perfect corner of the store up for grabs, Ali realized he'd been made an offer he couldn't pass up.
Ali’s uncle Arshad Hussain, who owns the building, was delighted with his nephew’s business idea – telling the Post: “I dreamed of it.
“I always wanted to do something like this for the community and for the heritage of Italian cuisine. I think it's a very new concept for people,” Hussain said.
Aldo's still uses the same recipes that its founder, Calore, developed when he opened his original store in 1962, except for two key ingredients.
Both pork and alcohol are forbidden for Muslims, which is why Ali's recipes call for non-alcoholic cooking wine, and all the bites contain beef or chicken instead of pork.
“The first thing — after our own food — Muslims love Italian food, and the problem is we can't go out to eat because most Italian food is made with alcohol and wine and stuff like that,” Ali told the Post, noting that he and his fellow Muslims were limited to eating plain slices at previous versions of Aldo's.
“So I always wanted to open my own space where I could speak to all kinds of nationalities.
“But I didn't want it to be limited to just Muslims. I wanted to address everyone,” he said. “That's why we took a lot of time to make sure that all the meat to be replaced would taste the same. »
Ali has a friend who tested his substitute meats to make sure the beef pepperoni or beef prosciutto tasted the same as their pork counterparts.
“A lot of people say it’s better than before!” » Ali said.
https://nypost.com/2026/02/15/us-news/aldos-in-ozone-park-sheds-mob-past-to-be-halal-italian-joint/
