Cars may outnumber pedestrians on Merrick Road, but both can now stop for one of Naples’ most popular street foods. Louis Fontana and his wife, Lauren, opened Cuoppo NYC this week at one end of a Merrick strip mall, selling paper cones filled with bite-size, feather-light fried food.

“I learned to cook from my family,” said chef Louis Fontana, whose clan has long owned and operated Caffe Napoli in New York City’s Little Italy, as well as sold street food at the Feast of San Gennaro. That food included cuoppo Napoletano, a ubiquitous Naples street snack of paper cones of fried morsels nibbled before dinner to whet the appetite.