Congratulazioni! Rebecca Scaramuzzino Promoted To General Manager of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana

by Joe Bonadio

It’s always been true: a restaurant is only as good as the people running it. Show me a great restaurant, and I’ll show you a very talented group of people. People who work well together, to create something bigger than themselves. Something special.

Over the last eight years or so, I’ve had the pleasure to interview over a dozen of the people who make Tony’s Pizza Napoletana the humming dynamo that it is. From managers to bartenders, from pizza makers (many of them world pizza champions) to Tony himself, I’ve had the unique opportunity to talk to the professionals whose work lies behind what might just be the best pizzeria in America.

One of those people is Rebecca Scaramuzzino, who joined the Tony’s staff as floor manager in 2021. We first spoke shortly after her arrival at Tony’s, and I’ve been tracking her progress ever since. Rebecca has had an exciting year thus far: in March, she placed sixth in the challenging nontraditional category at Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, coming up just a hair short of the finals. Then just last month, in a huge vote of confidence, it was announced that Rebecca would be the new Tony’s General Manager.

With all of her new responsibilities, Rebecca was kind enough to sit down and talk with me last week. Lightly edited for length and clarity, our conversation is below.

Joe Bonadio (JB): Alright. First off, let’s not bury the lede. Congratulations!

Rebecca Scaramuzzino (RS): Thank you!

JB: You’re stepping into some pretty big shoes here.

RS: Very big shoes.

JB: How long have you been here now?

RS: It’s going to be five years in August.

JB: So, it only took you that long to take over the roost!

RS: Yeah, it’s kind of crazy.

JB: Well, you’ve been in this business since you were 15 years old.

RS: Yes.

JB: So I think it’s safe to say that hospitality, and F&B, is kind of in your blood.

RS: It is.

JB: But that being said, this is a huge step.

RS: It is, it’s a huge step.

JB: You know, everyone knows that Tony’s is an institution. But beyond that, it’s a singular place when it comes to the scale of what you guys actually do here.

RS: Yeah, it is.

JB: This is not just a normal restaurant to take over.

RS: Not at all, not at all.

JB: So how does it feel so far?

RS: It feels really good. You know, when I came for my interview five years ago, I sat down with Natale and Bill and we talked about goals. They asked me what it was that I was looking for in this job. I’d already been in the industry for 20 years. I’d started at Porky’s Pizza Palace in San Leandro as a pasta cook and made my way around the kitchen, all the way up to manager. Why was I looking to come here? What exactly was I looking to do?

And I told them that ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to do something that was a part of my culture, and who I was inside. I really needed that wish fulfilled. And I wanted opportunity for advancement. I’d already kind of reached my full potential at Porky’s, and I knew that. I wanted to learn everything that I could learn, whether it was about dough, or toppings, or hospitality—everything about the industry.

That’s what I set out to do when I came here—and this is the result of that hard work.

JB: You know the timing of your arrival was pretty interesting too. Five years back, we’re talking about a year into COVID.

RS: Yeah, that’s right.

JB: And you can really trace a lot of what’s happening to this business right now to that period. That’s when the shit sort of hit the fan—in a good way.

RS: Yeah, that’s one way to describe it! (Laughter)

JB: That’s when franchising started to take off with the Slice House. And just the amount of exposure….you know, you guys are everywhere now. The business has always had a pretty high profile, but over the past few years the game has really changed.

RS: Yes, it really has.

JB: Do you ever have moments when you wonder if it’s more than you bargained for?

RS: Nope. To the contrary, it’s everything that I was hoping for. So far I’ve done everything I thought would be part of this position, and becoming part of this family. You know, between my article in PMQ magazine and my involvement with Women in Pizza—and now I’m going to do the P.I.E. conference with Laura Meyer and other influential women in the industry in September.

JB: Okay, tell me about that.

RS: It’s P.I.E.: the Pizza Industry Empowers Conference. It’s a community for women to get together and learn from one another about ingredients and techniques, to build camaraderie and just be part of something bigger within the industry. It’s all about self-development, and learning different ways to express yourself and build on the things that you learn.

You know, some people might be aiming toward entrepreneurship, and want to build their own restaurant; some others might want to take a path more like mine. You know, every single thing that you learn is a part of becoming better. So I’m incredibly excited for that event.

JB: Nice, I’ll look forward to hearing more about that. Of course, another huge change for you has been your move into competition.

RS: Yes!

JB: Which you really seem to have a taste for…

RS: I’m learning, I’m learning. Last year, I finally made it to just .08% away from getting into the finals. How do you think that feels?

JB: Oh man! So you ended up at number six, but your pizza actually scored better than some that ended up getting into the top three, right? Big names in the industry.

RS: Yeah, pretty much.

JB: That was just the luck of the draw. Ouch. So what do you think for next year?

RS: Next year, I won’t settle for anything less than the finals. I’ll tell you that much. Once you get a taste of being that close? It’s going to be my year. I promise you.

JB: Well, I’ll be rooting for Team Becca. Also, it was great to see Natale getting into the game this year.

RS: Yes! It took us a while to convince him to do it. I’m so proud of him.

JB: Pretty long in the tooth to be jumping into competition! That takes some stones.

RS: We’re so proud of him.

JB: Next thing you know, he’s going to be a pizza acrobat. (Laughter)

RS: We’ll see about that! Yeah. Not sure if that’s in the cards, but Natale has been working so hard on his dough. That has become a really serious passion of his. Every week he makes it, and every week he tries to improve his recipe. And I mean, he loves it.

JB: Yeah, he landed in the top 25, right? First time competing, that’s huge.

RS: Yeah it is.

JB: And Adam is certainly an example to follow.

RS: Adam is doing great. We love working together, we have the best little team. Whenever it’s practice time for competition, I love leaning on these guys. It’s the best support a person could ever have. They’re amazing.

JB: You’re never on your own when you’re at Expo.

RS: Never.

JB: So what have you learned? You said that everything you learn, every skill you gain is another piece of your progress. What have you learned from competition?

RS: So with competition, the difficult thing is it’s subjective. When it comes to judges likes and dislikes, you know. So you might think that you just knocked out the number one best pizza you’ve ever made. But sometimes that’s not going to be the case for the judges.

JB: Right.

RS: Especially in non-traditional: you know, when you’re going into that category, the judges are comparing apples with lobster. You know, how do you judge that?

JB: This business is loaded with obtuse comparisons.

RS: That’s the thing. With pizza, the options are limitless, especially in a category like that. But I was lucky enough to travel to Germany, and to try new food and new flavors there. It really expanded my palate, and my pizza was strictly a German pizza. I don’t think I ever would have been able to make that pizza had I not traveled there.

JB: You were there long enough to kind of take up the food culture?

RS: Yes. You really have to open your mind to things that aren’t in your normal day-to-day experience. Those are ingredients I would have never put on a pizza, you know. But the ingredients came from a sandwich, just like my first competition pizza came from a burger that I had.

JB: So tell the readers about the pizza.

RS: All right. So this was a malted dough with stout beer, and I started with a very thin layer of ground mustard on the bottom. And then I added Muenster cheese, and a special bratwurst made by Little City Meats right here in North Beach. They did a great job of putting that together for me.

The sauerkraut was red cabbage with juniper berries, and it had garlic mustard on top. There were some apples on there, both cooked apples and julienned apples, along with sweet caramelized onions and green onions. Finally, I used a drizzle of beer reduction after it came out of the oven.

JB: Wow, sweet and savory.

RS: You know that’s my favorite.

JB: Sweet and savory gets the judges every time.

RS: Apparently we’re getting close! Almost there. I’m going to make them know who I am.

JB: Nice! I can’t wait to see what you come up with next year.

RS: Yeah. Maybe Tony will let us put it on the menu for Oktoberfest.

JB: I would love to see that. Sign me up!

RS: We do the sausage and stout, right? So why not.

JB: So what do you think is going to change, with your new role here?

RS: You know, I’m not too sure what it’s going to look like yet. There’s still a lot that I’m learning every day. Right now I’ve taken over a lot of the backend things, computer and clerical work that Natale spent a lot of time doing. The idea is with his new role, to make it so he doesn’t have to be here.

I feel like a lot of these are things that I was already doing. I’m very involved with my staff, and with all of the special projects Tony is doing, festivals, collaborations and things like that. We have some really big things coming up, obviously the pizza festival being one of them.

JB: That’s a lot to wrangle, I’m sure. I can’t wait.

RS: It’s a lot, yeah. And it’s right around the corner!

JB: Yep. You know, something I find interesting is how restaurants change over time. If you’re in business for 15 or 20 years, the audience you have is not the audience you started with. Your first customers come, then years later they are bringing in their kids. And then those kids grow up, and maybe hold their graduation parties here or whatever. And it changes the vibe of the restaurant. What are some of the changes you’ve seen in the five years you’ve been here?

RS: That’s a difficult question. Obviously, like you said, when I started here it was peak COVID. So when you look at what our best night then was, we’ve doubled that. But the word is definitely getting out more, you know. With the collaborations that we’re doing, the pizza festival and things like that, people want to come here and see what this is all about, you know?

I think in a lot of restaurants in general, customer service and hospitality has been lost. And I think the one thing that people love about Tony’s is that when you come here, you’re going to get the full experience every single time. We’re a standout restaurant. When you come to Tony’s you feel like you’re a local, you feel like you’re a regular. I think that we’ve really built on that foundation since I’ve been here. In hospitality, you have one chance to get it right. People are traveling here from all over the world, and you’ve got one shot.

JB: Also, they might not, they might be coming from a neighborhood or two away. Or they might be on the naysayers team, those people who for years have been saying Oh, that place is just for tourists. And now they’re hearing from everywhere that Tony’s is actually the best pizzeria. And they’re finally coming to check it out.

RS: I think so, too. We’ve gained a lot of new locals lately, and sometimes I talk to people who are here for the first time. And they live in the neighborhood! They seem embarrassed to say it. And I’m like, why did it take you so long to get here?

JB: Better late than never, I suppose. Rebecca, thanks for taking the time. And congratulations again!

RS: Thank you!