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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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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