by Joe Bonadio

As you may have heard, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana recently celebrated its 15th year in business. That’s a milestone most restaurants never get close to, so the Tony’s team has a lot to be thankful for—and a lot to be proud of. And while fifteen years is a long time, when you stop to consider how far they’ve come a decade and a half doesn’t seem so long at all.

When Tony decided to offer franchise opportunities for Slice House by Tony Gemignani, it was a watershed moment akin to his upset first-place win in Naples all the way back in 2007. While the original plan had been to franchise Pizza Rock, at the beginning of the pandemic sales skyrocketed at Slice House, and it was time for Tony to pivot.

Fast forward to the present, and the group has nearly 150 locations in development in seven states. Yet when you talk to Tony, it’s hard not to get the feeling that he’s just getting started.

I recently sat down with my favorite pizza maker to talk about Slice House’s recent openings in Mountain View and across the Bay Area. Lightly edited for length and clarity, our conversation is below.

Joe Bonadio: So things with Slice House just keep accelerating. I understand you’ve got some new openings to report.

Tony Gemignani: Yes. Folsom opened, then Simi Valley in L.A, and we just opened Mountain View. Coming up next will be Eastvale, which is by Riverside, then Castro Valley and Burbank, all in a row.

JB: Wow. What’s the timeline for those?

TG: July/August/September, kind of like that.

JB: Okay.

TG: The Mountain View location is with a lady named Pritika—I went to high school with her. She and her husband Hersh were both in my graduating class. They weren’t going out back then, but they got to know each other in college, from what I understand.

So of all the Slice House franchises, this was the first that was a little more personal, in a way.

JB: These were your old high school friends.

TG: Yeah, so it was interesting. Pritika has a number of different locations: she has San Jose, Campbell, Fremont and some others in the Bay Area, so this is her first of many.

JB: She purchased a group of them?

TG: She did. Her family came from a restaurant background, they owned and operated Denny’s restaurants.

You know, it was different dealing with someone I’ve known so long. Of course, you want to make sure that all the franchisees are successful and busy, and every city is unique when you’re opening up.

It’s good. Pretty soon we’ll have one opening up every month.

JB: That’s quite a pace, Tony.

TG: Yep. But we had a really great team at Mountain View: we had Chef Jason, Chef John, Chef Anthony, Dominique, Bill. Myself, Rene—we were all there. It was the biggest team we’ve ever had for an opening. And now that will be the standard going forward, a lot of people have been hired.

JB: How big is the store?

TG: The store is just under 2,000 square feet. It has some nice seating, indoor and out. It’s in a shopping center between a movie theater and a Safeway, but it’s also next to a dog park and a hotel. It kind of sits back from the main boulevard in Mountain View, but it’s gotten busier and busier, which has been a great thing.

So it’s exciting to see them open up. Pritika also has Fremont coming up, which is where I was born and raised.

JB: Where you originally thought of opening up this place.

TG: Yeah. Castro Valley is going to be opening up, and that’s where I had Pyzano’s. So that’s really exciting too.

JB: It is. That’s a story in itself.

So Tony, how does it feel to hit the fifteen year mark?

TG: Some days it feels like it was just yesterday, and other days it seems like an eternity. A lot has happened since 2009, and not just with us, but with the whole neighborhood.

We’ve seen a lot of places come and go, which has been sad to see. We went through Covid, and we’ve been part of three different decades.

JB: That’s true, the Oughts, the Teens and the Twenties.

TG: We’ve got customers that we’ve had from the very beginning, and others who have sadly passed. When you’ve been here so long….I don’t know. At one time I felt like an outsider.

JB: Oh yeah. There were were more than a few naysayers.

TG: Yeah, in ’09 it was Who’s this guy coming in from outside of the city? Writers didn’t believe in us, and we had to build up the customer base, and the respect that comes with that.

Like it was yesterday, I remember painting the front of Tony’s when the first employee that I hired, Stephanie, who is still with me today, crossed the street to ask if I was hiring. Getting up off the ground and dusting off my pants, and grabbing her an application. It was probably that same day that Robvell walked up with his son, coming from Rose Pistola, to see if we needed people. Of course, Robvell’s still with me today.

So you think about all of these things. Where the city is going, and what it used to be like—all of it.

JB: And the city is in a time of transformation, as much as it ever has been.

TG: Yes. And it hurts to see that we’re at such a low point. Businesses are suffering, and Union Square is getting killed. We’re going into an election, and you hope it bounces back, no matter who the president is. I just hate to see San Francisco hurting this much. Every time you read the paper or go on social media, it’s another place going out of business.

JB: It’s tough. But did you see that the mall downtown just signed up six new tenants?

TG: That’s good, they really need to.

All of that aside, I feel blessed that we’ve been able to succeed. To re-create, and to stay relevant. I’ve always said you can become old very fast in our industry—diners are always looking for the next new restaurant. When you go out with your girl or whoever you’re with, you want to go to the hot new spot.

If you’re able to maintain yourself as that hot new spot 15 years later, that’s not a small thing. We’re as good as we’ve ever been, and as busy as we’ve ever been. And we have more of a menu than we’ve ever had before.

So I’ve got to hand it to my crew for everything we’ve been able to do here. Because nobody believed in this corner fifteen years ago, I can tell you that.

JB: I know, I was here for it. And you never stop bringing new things online, either. You’ve got the Pizza, Bagel & Beer Fest coming up in less than a month.

TG: Yeah, I was talking to Nick (Figone, SFIAC Director) just this morning, and we’re going full speed ahead. We added about 1,000 more tickets this year, so we’re gearing up for about 3,000 people. We’re just breaking 2k in sales right now, and it’s less than a month away. It’s one of those things—you’re always kind of nervous.

One thing that helps is this year we’ll be able to build everything the night before, which we couldn’t last year. We had everything delivered at 3:00 AM, and built everything in the middle of the night. So we weren’t totally ready when we opened—as people rolled in, we were continuously building. So by the time they got to us, we were just barely finished.

JB: Nobody noticed. (Laughter)

TG: It was a lot, so we decided not to do that to ourselves again. So we’ll have everything built the night before, and hopefully we’ll be able to get a decent night’s sleep and get out here at 6:00 AM instead of 3:00.

We’re going to have twice the pizzerias this year. Almost 40, and we’ll have double the oven power. We have 12 double-stack ovens, and there are 22 pizzerias, but on each stack there are five rotating chefs from different pizzerias. Like John Arena from Vegas, and Tiago Vasconcelos, who used to work for me, is coming in from Austin.

JB: So there’s a lot more talent coming in.

TG: Yes. It’s going to be very cool. Seven bagel shops, not six. And we’re doing the Ooni pizza championship for home chefs.

JB: Yeah that’s cool, I saw that.

TG: Yeah, and we sold that out today. We have 14 competitors total, so we allowed two more. We added a writer from the Examiner who’s coming in to compete. She’s a home chef and a pizza enthusiast, and we did a background check to make sure she could make a pie.

JB: (Laughter)

TG: We’ve also got a guy flying in from Montana that wants to compete. The Ooni Cup trophy will be done tomorrow, and there are some awesome prizes. You can win an Ooni oven, or $1,000 worth of pizza supplies, so it’ll be great. Pepperoni for life—someone’s going to have 20 pounds of pepperoni in the freezer for the next two years. (Laughter)

We’ve got some great judges for that, too: Chef Neal is going to be a judge. He’s an old school chef who I’ve known for years, he asked if we need volunteers. I told him we need a judge, and he was all over it. Stephanie Swane from Modernist Cuisine is going to be our M.C., and she’s great. So that’s going to be kind of a cool little area.

JB: And you’ve got the beer garden, too.

TG: Yes, we’ve got roughly 20 local breweries pouring, and they’re going to be in the Salesian Club parking lot, which is what we originally planned last year. So that’s going to give everybody a little more breathing room.

JB: It’s going to be great, Tony. I’ve got a big group coming, and we’re all looking forward to it. Thanks again for taking the time!

 

Tickets for the the 2024 SF Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival can be purchased here. Next time on the blog, we’ll be talking with Tony about his brand-new collaboration with Princess Cruise Lines. See you then!