Six months after shutting down the final Barroco Grill on Larchmere Boulevard, Juan and Carlos Vergara are preparing to open La Pecora Slice Shop (12718 Larchmere Blvd.) in the same space. It is the next-door sibling to La Pecora, the intimate Neapolitan-style “pizza bar” that the father-and-son team opened two years ago.
In contrast to the small, reservation-suggested pizza bar with an open kitchen, the new slice shop will be walk-in only, family friendly and very casual. Whereas La Pecora is dinner-only, the slice shop will be open for lunch and dinner every day. In place of full-service dining, customers at the slice shop will walk up to the counter, place their orders and sit wherever they’d like in the 65-seat dining room.
Also, the style of pizza will be very different. Diners at La Pecora enjoy pizzas made from slow-fermented doughs that are cooked in a wood-burning pizza oven, which is visible from the bar.
“What I’m shooting for here is something along the lines of New York but with no flop; who doesn’t like a thin and crispy pizza,” Vergara says about the slice shop. “My focus is to create something that is delicious for everyone who walks in off the street and has no idea about New York pizza or Neapolitan pizza – they just want a good slice.”
Vergara’s pizza is naturally fermented using a sourdough starter in place of commercial yeast. His goal is to create something unique and delicious.
“I could follow someone else’s recipes, but I realized what’s best for us is to just do our own thing. Following concepts that already exist, obviously, but making them our own because that’s the only way we can be authentic.”
The 18-inch pizzas will be thin and crisp and sold by the slice or pie. They will be joined by a few salads and pastas, but the goal is to keep things simple and streamlined.
Since launching Barroco Grill 25 years ago in Lakewood, the Vergaras went on to open multiple concepts that stretched from Westlake to Willoughby. But this year they shut it all down, closing all remaining Barroco Grill locations while selling off concepts such as Hola Tacos and Amazonia. Instead, they went all in on Larchmere.
“This is a Larchmere creation that is unique to the neighborhood,” Vergara says of La Pecora. “People love sitting at the bar and watching us make pizzas.”
After La Pecora Slice Shop is up and running smoothly, the Vergaras will shift their attention to Lakewood, where they are in the midst of converting the original Barroco property into a different type of neighborhood pizza shop.
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