Penn Station's famed Rose Pizza serving up slices again

Penn Station commuters can get a slice of the past now that a beloved pizzeria on the main concourse has reopened.

The famed subterranean slice joint, Rose's Pizza, shuttered for several years, reopened just before the new year to greet LIRR travelers with a bite before their ride.

The MTA announced the reopening Tuesday online. The renovated pizza shop on the Long Island Rail Road concourse now goes by the name "Rose Pizza" and includes new signage. It also has a red subway tile interior, table and counter seating and a bar full of beer taps with cans also available.

Penn Station teased the reopening for more than a year following construction and pandemic disruptions.

The pizzeria and other Penn Station restaurants closed as part of a $600 million renovation project to clean up the LIRR terminal, including raising the ceilings and widening walkways by pushing back businesses. It is part of a larger $7 billion overhaul of Penn Station.

Wednesday evening, rush hour commuters crowded into pizzeria, grabbing beers or warmed-over slices and snapping photos of the new-look eatery on their cellphones.

Jada Garcia, 30, of Jamaica, Queens, literally could not wait for her pepperoni slice to come out of the oven.

She had a train to catch, she told the cashier, and she needed that slice already.

The slice came out a bit prematurely, and she sipped her fountain drink of Hi-C mixed with Sprite.

“You guys have the best pizza!” said Garcia, a manager at a Wingstop restaurant.

Then, seated at a table for two and baking in fluorescent lights, she evangelized to a skeptical, and still unconvinced, Newsday reporter.

“You’re gonna taste it. You’re gonna see,” she said. “It’s the best pizza. I literally live Jamaica, Queens, and Sutphin, and I came all the way for pizza. I’m in a rush to go back and get my children right now.”

Garcia said she had checked last week but the pizzeria was closed. Then she heard someone on the train mention it had finally opened. So she came. And then left for the train.

Pat Wentling, 36, of New Rochelle, said coming in for a slice is a tradition of sorts. He hadn’t been since before the pandemic.

“Anytime I would take NJ Transit or Long Island Rail Road, I would come get a slice, kind of like a thing I would always do,” said Wentling, who works in public relations.

Wednesday he had a cheese slice and a Montauk IPA. Wentling recalled how he once came to the old Rose’s with his wife before seeing Billy Joel upstairs at Madison Square Garden.

David Holliday, who works at a restaurant in Manhasset, is now 48, but reminisced about heading into Manhattan as a 23-year-old having recently moved to New York from South Carolina.

“We’d go get hammered down in the Village, take the train back to Long Island, hit Rose’s Pizza, you know, grab a beer,” he said Wednesday during the early evening rush hour as he ate a grandma slice and a Sicilian pepperoni slice.

“It’s just good to see something open in Penn Station," Holliday said. "It’s been a ghost town over here. So it’s just good to see things kind of coming to life.”