With 120-plus locations and two new concepts under its umbrella, this growing chain scores points with families via weekday lunch buffets, game rooms and giving back. In 1973, Tony Cavolo, a Brooklyn, New York, native, was inspired to open a neighborhood pizzeria in his adopted home of Glendale, Arizona. The idea was simple: great pizzas…
A business-savvy family steps in to continue the legacy of an Ohio institution—and ambitious expansion plans via franchising are underway. Brian Claggett was once just another fan of Plaza Pizza in Newark, Ohio, which founders Mike and Donna Brown began in 1971—he and his seven siblings ate there growing up, on weekends and after ball…
Their first store sometimes sold just one pizza a day. Fifty years later, the Buccilli family tree has branched out around northern Michigan through five thriving locations. In 1973, husband and wife Pat and Mary Lee Buccilli opened Buccilli’s Pizza in a rented building at the south end of Clare, Michigan. The family had been…
One of America’s oldest operating pizzerias and fresh off its latest expansion, this Connecticut institution has been welcoming generations of families since 1935. In 1918, Neapolitan immigrants Alfonso DeSimone Sr. and his wife, Assunta, were earning local approval with their Savoy Bakery business, operated out of the back of their three-family home in Bridgeport, Connecticut….
Two brothers barely out of high school tried their hand at the pizza business. In 2021, that teenage dream celebrated 50 years of success in small-town Indiana. Brothers Stan and Steve Cook were lucky to have an aunt and uncle in the food biz—they owned an ice cream manufacturing plant and a soda fountain sit-down…
This Quad Cities original celebrates 50 years in 2022 by honoring its heartwarming roots while shuttling the brand into the 21st century. In 1972, Lawrence “Happy Joe” Whitty, a trained baker from North Dakota who worked at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, opened the first location of Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream in Davenport, Iowa, to…
An Italian immigrant, and now his son, juggle full-time jobs and pizzeria ownership, building an American-dream story through three generations and counting. Mike Fiorentino, an Italian immigrant, was not afraid of hard work upon arriving in the United States. After serving in the U.S. Army, he landed a job at IBM. But his real dream…
More than 300,000 customers annually come for the pipes and stay for the pizza at this destination entertainment venue in Arizona, boasting the world’s largest theatre organ. Organ Stop Pizza opened in Phoenix in 1972, when theatre organist Bill Brown decided to marry his musical calling with his favorite food, pizza. In 1975, he expanded…
This 81-unit chain honors its original founders, who fostered a sense of family and community, while surging ahead with tech-based advancements to spur lofty growth goals. In 1961, Italian immigrant Mike Valerio and his wife, Helen, took a chance on opening Piece o’ Pizza in East Boston, Massachusetts. But when it was renamed Papa Gino’s…
The third-generation owners of this Michigan cult favorite are banking on slow but steady growth, with two new locations set to launch this summer. Thomas Vettraino and his wife, Irene, opened Green Lantern Tavern in Madison Heights, Michigan, in 1946. But the little hole-in-the-wall tavern really hit its stride in 1955, when it turned into…
