Who

Prisinzano owns a series of perpetually-packed Italian restaurants in the East Village, as well as the hipster radio station East Village Radio.

Backstory

The Long Island native attended the Culinary Institute of America before taking gigs as a chef, waiter and bartender at restaurants in New York and Miami. (He worked briefly at the Park Avenue Café under David Burke.) Prisinzano's first eatery, Frank—the instantly buzzed-about East Village spot full of thrift-store furniture and homey Italian food—opened in 1998. He expanded with the pizza joint Lil' Frankie's, which he set up to handle the spillover crowds from Frank. In 2002, he opened Supper, a Northern Italian spot that was a bit more upscale but ended up being just as crowded. Prisinzano left his Italian comfort zone in 2004 to open No. 1 Chinese, an East Village Asian restaurant with a dance lounge in the basement. Prisinzano's attempt to venture to the West Side ended his winning streak: Hue, a swanky Vietnamese restaurant/nightspot on Bleecker Street, shuttered in 2005.

On the side

With a friend, Rui Docouto, Prisinzano started the furniture/interiors firm Site Specific Design in 2002. The firm has done work on his own restaurants, naturally, but it's also helped design a handful of others, including the Mud Café, Sugo, the Cuban Room, Med Café, and the Gin Mill. A year later, Prisinzano founded the "pirate" radio station, East Village Radio. (He got the idea after chatting with a friend who'd been involved with a pirate station in Austin.) The station, which once featured DJs like Mark Ronson, the MisShapes, and Lady Sovereign, turned to broadcasting online after the FCC served up Prisinzano with a cease and desist and threatened him with a $100,000 fine.

Personal

Prisinzano lives in the East Village with his wife Lorenza.