UPDATED WITH SERVICE TIME: ‘Benny Tudino,’ owner of beloved Hoboken pizza shop, passes away

HOBOKEN — Bari Drishti, AKA “Benny Tudino” of Benny Tudno’s pizza shop on Washington Street, has passed away. Benny was a familiar face sitting outside his popular, centrally located shop, which was known for serving the largest (and doughiest) slices around. Benny and his pizza became legendary, feeding generations of Hobokenites as well as the newer, young residents who moved to the mile-square city after college. The pizza slices were so big, people sometimes gave Benny photos of the slices next to their babies.
Drishti has two sons who are involved in the community in coaching and law enforcement, Arbend and Eddie.
Hoboken residents and officials mourned his passing on Thursday. One man Tweeted, “RIP TO THE LEGEND BENNY TUDINO. HE FED ME ON MANY DRUNK NIGHTS.” County Freeholder Anthony Romano wrote, “Hoboken lost a part of its history, Bari Drishti, loved by all as Benny Tudino. May he RIP.”
A young woman tweeted, “Benny Tudino died wtf that cute man used to give me free pizza all the time.”
People also left comments on the Reporter’s Facebook page, with the post being shared more than 150 times and reaching more than 20,200 people.
Drishti came to the U.S. from Albania in 1963. He moved to Hoboken in 1968 with his wife, Sophia, when Benny’s cousin and a former priest — Father Tudino — purchased 622 Washington St. The two men opened a pizzeria, Tudino’s. It slowly amassed a following.
But not all was sunny with Drishti. In 1985, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement with what federal prosecutors described as “a group of Albanian-Yugoslavian drug dealers” according to the New York Times.
To learn more about the man and the shop’s history, check out this story we ran about him in 2015.
Also, for a new story check the cover of the print edition of the Hoboken Reporter this weekend.
To see comments left about him on the Hudson Reporter’s Facebook page, click here. to read people’s Twitter comments, click here.
NJ.com reported late on Friday that a service will be held at Lawton-Turso Funeral Home on Sunday from 1 to 9 p.m. Benny will be buried alongside his wife in Albania.