Where Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana

What A red neon sign promoting the Chestnut Hill restaurant’s “Original Tomato Pies.’’ You’ll see one hanging in every Pepe shop, including at the New Haven original.

Whose Idea This pizza landmark trades in charred, thin-crust tomato pies sprinkled ever so lightly with Parmesan, immortalized in cherry-red neon. “In the 1930s and 1940s, neon was very big,’’ explains Pepe co-owner Gary Bimonte, whose grandfather founded the place in 1925 as a go-to for tomato (and anchovy) pies. At one point, the original restaurant was festooned with neon lights. It didn’t last: “In the early 1960s, it got to be a nuisance. I remember as a kid finding neon on top of shelving and going up there with a hammer and smashing it,’’ Bimonte recalls with a chuckle. Luckily, the classic, slightly kitschy pie signage endures and now shines in all Pepe outposts, new and old.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, The Mall at Chestnut Hill, 199 Boylston St., Chestnut Hill, 617-964-7373, www.pepespizzeria.com

KARA BASKIN

Kara Baskin can be reached at kcbaskin@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @kcbaskin.