Tony's Di Napoli eyes first Long Island restaurant at former TGI Fridays site

Family-style Italian restaurant Tony’s Di Napoli plans to venture out of the Big Apple for the first time in more than three decades. 

With two New York City locations — in Times Square and the Upper East Side — Tony’s is seeking to open a restaurant on Long Island, in a former TGI Fridays space in Manhasset in the Miracle Mile shopping district.

Tony’s has leased the space at 1445 Northern Blvd., where the restaurant is projected to open in early 2026, said Stuart Wetanson, a third-generation owner of the restaurant business.

Expanding onto Long Island made sense for the business since one of its co-founders, Wetanson’s grandfather, is from the Five Towns, and Wetanson and his father, who is also a co-founder, are Huntington residents, he said.

“We know the [Long Island] area well. And we think the area is underserved for family-style Italian restaurants of our quality,” Wetanson said.

Tony’s Di Napoli, which does not serve pizza, has an elevated aesthetic as “a family-style Italian restaurant in the style of old-school New York City,” he said.

The business' expansion onto Long Island also is a logical move because several of the restaurants’ managers and salespeople are Long Island residents, and the Miracle Mile is a strong draw. The Miracle Mile is a stretch of Northern Boulevard that includes restaurants and luxury shops, including the high-end Americana Manhasset shopping center. 

“We feel very strongly that the Miracle Mile is the right market for us, where it’s become a dining destination and it pulls from all over the Island,” Wetanson said.

The Wetanson family is seeking to turn the former TGI Fridays space into a two-level restaurant, he said.

On Monday, a commercial building permit application for the new restaurant was submitted to the Town of North Hempstead for approval, but it has not been reviewed yet, Glenn Norjen, deputy commissioner in the town's building department, wrote in an email.

Wetanson’s grandfather and father, Herb and Greg Wetanson, respectively, opened the first Tony’s Di Napoli in the Upper East Side in 1990. That restaurant was relocated to another Upper East Side location in 2012 after New York City took the property by eminent domain in 2011 for the Second Avenue Subway construction.

In 2002, the owners opened a second restaurant, in Times Square.

The Wetanson family also owns Dallas BBQ, which has 12 eateries in New York City and New Jersey.

Herb Wetanson has operated restaurants on Long Island before as the co-founder of the former Wetson’s Hamburgers chain. He and his brother Errol opened the first Wetson’s in Levittown in 1959. At the fast food burger chain’s peak, it had 72 locations in the New York City metro area, Stuart Wetanson said. The hamburger chain was acquired by Nathan’s Famous in 1975.