Son to Take Over Same Old Place

Eric Ciampa will take over the longstanding JP restaurant after the death of his father, Fred Ciampa.

Same Old Place will be getting a change. Pending some paperwork with the city, Eric Ciampa will take over management duties at Same Old Place, a 40-year pizza-and-sub institution in Jamaica Plain. Fred Ciampa, the restaurant’s founding owner, died last July at age 69. Eric Ciampa opened Hyde Square’s Slice O’ Pie restaurant in February 2011, but the shop closed abruptly in June 2012. Ciampa had trouble with the city over its licenses early in the year, but the JPNC affirmed Ciampa’s licenses in May 2012. The shop closed one week later, due ultimately to a “spat with the landlord,” a source says. Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council member Michael Reiskind said at a Jan. 29 meeting that a city board has to be notified of any management change…

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BUSINESS NOTES: My Big Fat Greek Pizza Changes Name, Ownership

A Forest Hills pizza shop is under new management.

My Big Fat Greek Pizza has changed not just its name, but its ownership. The Forest Hills pizza and sub shop recently became "Big Bites." I spoke briefly with the new owners the other day, who say the food will be better than at their predecessor's. If you frequent that section of Forest Hills, you may have noticed the evolution of the signage. Before their new sign arrived, the new owners had removed "My," "Fat" and "Greek" to leave "Big Pizza." Hat tip to Universal Hub, which pointed out the changes to a business I pass nearly every day! The UHub thread had some speculation that the trademark police might have been at work (though does anyone remember that movie?). It looks now like it was simply a change of ownership and name.  [Editor'…

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JP Eats!

You Dropped the (Steak) Bomb on Me

Same Old Place’s most popular sub is a thing of legend—and legacy.

While it’s thrilling to witness the Jamaica Plain restaurant scene evolve, it’s easy to take a joint like Same Old Place for granted. The family-owned pizzeria and sub shop on Centre Street has been a neighborhood mainstay for decades, and while revered by locals for its Italian pizza and sub sandwiches, the humble hole-in-the-wall spot fails to elicit much contemporary culinary excitement, let alone the hot press buzz reserved for the neighborhood’s newer, flashier restaurants. Still, the place never ceases to pack in the patrons.  An unfortunate gang-related shooting at Same Old Place put the eatery on the local news map in late 2010, and just last month, the passing of its founder and owner, Fred Ciampa, made neighborhood headlines. The…

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POLL ENDS AUG. 17: What's Jamaica Plain's Best Pizza Shop?

Our Best of Patch Readers' Choice Jamaica Plain contests (in 25 categories) end Aug. 17.

Youth Summit Held at Jamaica Plain's Curley School About Food and Health Issues

“There are too many pizza parlors in Jamaica Plain,” said one sixth-grader. “It’s greasy and unhealthy, and cheap so kids eat it all the time."

The Curley School was the crowded site yesterday for “Nuestro Futuro Saludable,” or “Our Healthy Future,” a youth-led summit that examined nutrition, exercise, a variety of other health concerns, and community activism. The event was organized by Tufts University in association with the Boston Public Health Commission, the Latin American Health Institute, Northeastern University, a host of local agencies, and a board of community advisors. “This event was months in the making,” said Lynette Correa, a career youth developer and one of the adult facilitators for the project.  “I started in January,” she stated, long before the Whole Foods/Whose Foods fray. But the youth summit was no food fight. The first part of the program took place in …

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Jamaica Plain's Newest Pizzeria Offers a Slice O' Hyde Square

At Slice O' Pie, a pizza veteran puts his work ethic on the line.

Some people have a dream to open a restaurant. They have a few special recipes or they know their way around a kitchen. They have a romantic vision of what it will be like. They're sure that they'll create the next great place. It usually turns out that they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Most of them fail. So when another pizza place opened up in JP, more than a few heads were scratched. Is he crazy? Doesn't he know that JP is saturated with pizza? Well, Slice O' Pie at 378 Center St. isn't one of those same old places destined to fail, and Eric Ciampa isn't crazy. He knows exactly what he's doing. He says that his style of pizza is special, everything they make is prepared fresh to order, they don't use any frozen …

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Bites Nearby

Same Ol' Good Pizza

For many around town, Same Old Place is, well, literally (and thankfully), the same old place.

It's hard to believe it's been just four months since that tragic, albeit fluke, gang shooting and stabbing cast a cloud over one of Centre Street's oldest eateries. But in the months since that senseless violence grabbed so much media attention, Same Old Place has remained, well, the same old place.  The family-run pizzeria has been around since the the seventies, and, beyond an oversized flatscreen in one of the two seating areas, there's likely little to distinguish it now from its inception—there's still the sensible formica-topped tables, the faux-brick interior walls and the dated, cheery billboard menus. (And if you close your eyes and concentrate, you can pick up the aroma of stale smoke—this joint, at one time, was surely a haven …

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