Co-owner of famous Brooklyn pizzeria found shot to death at home

Police are investigating the shooting death of a co-owner of L&B Spumoni Gardens pizzeria, a well-known Brooklyn eatery once embroiled in a mob-entangled feud over an alleged stolen sauce recipe.

Louis Barbati, 61, was shot twice outside his Dyker Heights home on 12thAvenue around 7 p.m. on Thursday, the New York Times reported. Authorities pronounced him dead at the scene.

“His wife was screaming, ‘I need help, someone shot my husband.’ She was behind him holding his body,” area resident Imran Arshad was quoted by the New York Daily News. “He never had any trouble with anybody. … This is a good quiet neighborhood.”

Police were searching for a white man in his 30s wearing a black hoodie, the Daily News added. Authorities were also locating security footage from nearby homes.

A two-block area around the Barbati home was sectioned off by authorities investigating the incident, according to the Times, which added that shootings were rare in this part of Brooklyn.

L&B Spumoni Gardens, started in 1939 by Barbati’s grandfather, became involved in a 2012 criminal case when Frank Guerra was acquitted of a double homicide and extortion after he had accused rivals of stealing the restaurant’s secret sauce recipe, the Daily News stated.

No restaurant employees were available to comment, and authorities stated that no arrests have been made, the Times added.