Leonardo's Pizza has been handing pies over the counter at 20 Broadway in Massapequa since the 1970s, and in all that time nobody has ever poured a legal glass of wine in the building. That is now set to change. As of Thursday, the pizzeria is preparing to serve wine, beer and cider at the table for the first time.

What is planned

The plan comes from Lizzie Andrea, Inc., the company doing business as Leonardo's Pizza at 20 Broadway, and it is the modest version of a bar. It does not make Leonardo's a nightspot, and it does not put a shelf of spirits behind the register. It puts wine and beer next to the food, which for a red-sauce pizzeria is less a business pivot than a missing piece finally arriving: a glass of chianti next to the grandma slice, a cold beer with the Family Special.

A first for the address

What makes the move notable is how clean the history behind it is. As far as anyone can tell, no one has ever poured legally at 20 Broadway in Massapequa. No wine list, no beer taps, nothing, going back generations. For a restaurant that Nassau County's own tourism office describes as founded in the 1970s by natives of Bari, the port city on Italy's Adriatic coast, that is a remarkably long dry spell, and this appears to be the first attempt to end it.

The quiet changeover behind the counter

The corporate name tells a second story. Lizzie Andrea, Inc. is a young company: state records show it was formed on October 1 of last year, registered in Nassau County. A corporation less than a year old standing behind a restaurant more than four decades old points to a recent change of hands at Leonardo's, the kind of transition that regulars tend to notice only in small details, a new voice on the phone, a new card machine, while the menu stays put.

And the menu has stayed put. The shop's own ordering site still leads with the things Massapequa actually orders: the Family Special that bundles a large pie, a dozen garlic knots, a tray of penne vodka or baked ziti and a hero for $42, the grandma Sicilian the house calls its favorite, chicken parm over homemade pasta. Whoever is behind Lizzie Andrea, Inc. seems to understand that the fastest way to lose a 50-year-old pizzeria's customers is to change the pizzeria.

There is precedent on Long Island for exactly this pattern, new owners and an unchanged name. When the 3rd Rail in Bellmore changed hands in August, the name stayed on the awning while a new company quietly took over the room. A change like this is often the earliest visible trace of a handover that the business itself never formally announces.

What happens next

Nothing changes at the counter yet, and the first pour is likely a few months away. The wine glasses have to be bought, the list has to be written, and the room has to be ready before anything lands on a table.

But when it comes, the change for a Massapequa regular is easy to picture. A pizzeria on the Broadway corridor that can put a glass of montepulciano next to a Sicilian square becomes a different kind of Friday night option: not a new restaurant, just the one you already know, finally able to pour. For a place that has fed the neighborhood for going on half a century, it is a small change with a long wait behind it.