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New York City is the most competitive pizza market in the country. Millions descend upon the city daily in search of the best slice, and national chains together account for less than one out of every 10 pizzeras. With a slice shop on nearly every block, competition is minutes away. Differentiation here isn't strategy, it's survival. But if your shop can rise to the top, the upside is limitless. Your pizzeria becomes a bucket list destination for tourists, a local institution with lines around the block and a springboard for global expansion. Over the generations, chains like Sabarro and Famous Rays have transformed from single New York slice shops into multinational empires. New
York today remains the benchmark that shapes how the entire world thinks about pizza. No one behind the counter has ever talked business on the record until now. We spoke to the legacy institutions, big names and newcomers across the city. They'll let you film, but almost no one, especially the old school Italians, will talk numbers. The old guard want to preserve their mystique and gatekeep their insight, while newcomers don't know if they'll survive the winter. The business of a New York City pizzeria, the strategies, insight, and financials behind these multi-million dollar empires, has never been revealed until now. But pizza isn't just an East Coast thing. If New York is
the heart, California is the frontier. The Golden State has the most pizzeras in the nation and is the birthplace of barbecue chicken pizza. It's a proving ground for the unorthodox and innovative like smoked salmon, goat cheese, avocado, and caviar. Yet, the entire industry can't be understood through the lens of a few single shops. To get a true macro view, we scraped all 15,000 pizzeras ever opened in California and New York and verified each manually to build the first accurate snapshot of the American pizza industry in its two biggest markets. In this modern NBA original, we go boots on the ground across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles to reveal what it really takes to win in the pizza business.
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that runs your business. As we scale modern MBA, we'll be using Netswuite and you should too. We sit on a mountain of data across viewership, engagement, demographics, revenue, and cost. But production is so intense that no one has the bandwidth to analyze the business. It's only gotten tougher as we've expanded production across multiple countries, increased budgets by double, and tripled the research per video. We're constantly balancing creativity with economics. But insight is hard to get without pulling ourselves away from what we do best. And we can't just trust a random AI tool that doesn't have the full picture and pretends to be right
when it's often wrong. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, Netswuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. Right now, get the business guide Demystifying AI free at netswuite.com/modernba. The guide is free to you at netswuite.com/modernba. Pizza is a perfect marriage of high demand, low cost, and low labor. The shallow learning curve and strong unit economics make it an accessible, attractive, and scalable billiondoll business on every continent. With some of the lowest food costs in the industry, pizzeras are the third largest restaurant category in the US behind only burgers and Mexican food. The core ingredients, processed flour, canned tomatoes, and federally subsidized
cheese are cheap, shelf stable, and have faced less inflation than meat and fresh produce. Pizzeras are more factories than restaurants. Assembly lines built to produce one product with minor variations. Without dining, every inch of space is optimized for production. Even the world's leading pizza chains take up substantially smaller real estate per store relative to their peers. But pizza is distinct from other fast casual quick service categories like burgers and fried chicken. These businesses rely on prime locations, drive-throughs, heavy foot traffic, and large freestanding spaces to drive sales. These categories tend to favor deep pocketed corporations. Nine out of every 10 burger restaurants in the US is a chain. But pizza is a more
level field where one out of every two pizza spots is still independent despite the prominence of national, regional, and local chains. Year after year, these chains keep scaling. New independents emerge and classic spots continue growing. Proof that there's plenty of pie to go around. For what they lack in quality, the big three, Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Papa John's, make up for inconvenience and value. They trade margins for volume in a way no other restaurant can. Using static menus, economies of scale, mass marketing, and endless coupons to win on price. This is why they can all offer the same large pizza deal for less than $10 nationwide for decades and not lose money. Not even McDonald's can match such prices or
discounts without cutting quality or portions thanks to the weaker unit economics and higher real estate costs for burger restaurants. Yet, the big three are really a one-horse race. Domino's leads on almost every metric with its ultra lean takeout only counter model. For decades, they've rolled out barebones stores and doubled down on online ordering to compensate for the lack of dining in ambiance. But to stand out, they committed to convenience, even promising 30inute delivery in the '90s. That speed is only possible when your stores are close to where customers live, and that kind of scale is only achievable with franchises. Domino's
remains one of the cheapest franchises to open with upfront costs below even its smallest rivals. In an era when corporations chase international growth, the average Domino's in the US has enjoyed record earnings and growth ahead of any other fast food chain. But the trade-off is margin. The average Domino's only earns 11%. Instead, franchises increase their profits by opening more stores, which only strengthens the overall network. But there isn't much cash flow when you're taking 5% of $8. Domino's as a company makes most of its money selling cheese, dough, and ingredients at a markup to its franchises. With billions in ingredient sales, Domino's is more of a logistics company than a pizza chain. In the 1980s, Pizza Hut emerged,
offering a unique product and dining experience. They built comfy sit-down restaurants and turned pan pizza into the centerpiece for family dinners, parties, and buffets. But 40 years later, that dining model is a liability. Pizza Hut doesn't have the customer base to compete on quality as past attempts to upscale have all flopped. They lack the network to compete on speed or price as their rivals sell for less and still make money with smaller, cheaper storefronts. This has pushed Pizza Hut into endless cost cutting, sacrificing quality, skimping on ingredients, and using frozen dough to help franchises turn a profit in these oversized, underused spaces. Because Pizza Hut corporate only makes money from
royalties, they've prioritized international expansion and left the US market to languish. Papa John's is forever a distant third. The chain lacks Pizza Hut's nostalgia and Domino speed and is stuck in a conflicting position between premium and value. The company leans on limited time gimmicks to catch attention, but they only ever drive short-term results. Like Domino's, Papa John's revenue comes from ingredient sales and royalties, but their growth depends on opening new stores. With volatile demand and franchises unwilling to invest more, the company has stagnated at every level. While the big three battle for dominance, a separate but similar war rages beneath them. Little Caesars has gone even further down the market, while
fast casual chains like Mod and Pyology move up. From the flimsy Sabarro slice at the mall food court to the long-standing players like Roundt and the newer brands like Blaze, all of these chains still average roughly a million dollars per store in revenue today. Pizza is just so popular that no chain, no matter how outdated or obsolete, ever truly collapses. Their struggles are all relative. Every concept has its ceiling, but the floor is unusually high. Ultimately, the longevity and resilience of corporate chains in this business extends to independent pizzeras. All right. I want an equal amount of ranch each one. Make it beautiful. In New York City, newcomers have it the toughest. They have to differentiate themselves from the old
school Italian institutions, iconic tourist landmarks, and entrenched neighborhood spots. Pops pizza has been featured on Jimmy Fallon and has earned the business of locals one slice at a time. In just 6 years, Ricky and Nick have grown from a tiny 300 ft hole in the wall to three stores with the newest just steps away from Time Square. But on the East Coast, legacy is measured in decades. And the two brothers are still considered newcomers. Pops is in Manhattan, the densest, wealthiest, and most recognizable of the five buraus where opportunity and competition go hand in hand. Manhattan has the most pizzeras with Brooklyn close behind.
Together, they form a fortress for independence, hosting more than nine out of every 10 pizzeras opened in the past decade. Farther out in Queens and the Bronx, corporate chains have made more inroads, as their promise of cheap, fast food resonates in these more car oriented, lower income, and suburban neighborhoods. Nick and Ricky did things the hardest way. As former T-Mobile store owners, they were outsiders. No culinary roots, restaurant experience, family playbooks, or industry connections. Instead of taking over an existing pizzeria, they converted a vacant jewelry store and unknowingly opened their doors in the most competitive neighborhood during the worst possible moment for any business.
But what the two brothers lacked an experience, they made up for in persistence. Buffalo jalapeno, the two barbecues to go. You got it, boss. We were like, let's do something. Pizza or bagel? We're not waking up at 5:00 a.m. Well, we'll work till 5:00 a.m. We'll work till 5:00 a.m. So, we're like, let's do pizza. We took some money, pulled it together, and we opened up our first shop on 57th Street. When CO happened, there was nobody in the city.
Couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do anything. We just got up every single day. We went to work. Some days it was disheartening. You know, you walk away and you made like 10 bucks or five bucks. Then we get up and do it again. And we do it again. Someters were there, supers were there, security was there. We're talking to them and they're like, "There's no food. Everything is shut. All the shops that were around, they're all closed." And then, you know, from word of mouth, they started speaking to some of the tenants that were left in the buildings and they started speaking to them and say, "These guys are open.
Check their pizza out. It's good." And we literally had a line maybe 2 weeks later and we're like, "Oh, okay. We could do this." There are more pizzeras in Midtown than any other neighborhood. And nearly a quarter of Manhattan pizzeras are packed onto these few blocks. Ricky and Nick are currently turning their foothold into a stronghold with their second and third stores just blocks apart. Born and raised in Queens, the brothers had a front row seat to New York's pizza evolution. Their exposure shaped their vision and taught them what all owners eventually face in this industry.
20, 30 years ago, there was a couple of joints. 2007, 2008, the $150 joints opened up. It's still going on, but it's not there like it used to be. I always looked at it skeptically cuz I'm like, what are you getting for a dollar? What are the ingredients? Why not go where you spend a dollar more and you are greeted at the door? Now they're shutting down. You know, 10 years later, then we have the whole downtown, Midtown, Brooklyn vibe going on. We got the bar stool reviews going in. And so everybody's like, "Oh, I'm a pizza connoisseur now." Then they have the legacy locations like
the real like old school pizzeras. They're staples. They're around as long as like the family wants to still run around. We speak to some people, they're like, "My kids don't want to run it anymore. We're out." They're like, "We did our 30 years doing this business. we're done after that. He'll sell it to somebody else. If they don't do well, they'll sell it again. And a lot of these locations, they keep getting sold within each other. This family member bought it. This guy's running it. But the name will never change. Me and my brother, we opened
this up together. We're like, you know what? Let's do this. We'll do it for like 20, 30 years, 10 years. Whatever we want to do, you know, as long as we still have that drive to do it, we're going to do it. We're going to give it 100%. Despite the saturation, New York pizzeras are strangely immortal. In Manhattan, 8% of independent pizzeras have shuttered their stores in the past decade, and the rate is even lower in Brooklyn. In simple terms, even in the most competitive, expensive burrows, over 90% of independent pizzeras survive. Statewide, the failure rate is only marginally higher at 10.4%. But pizza isn't a magical business that never fails. Instead, the failures are mostly invisible. In a city where real
estate is scarce, a struggling operator is often replaced by someone eager to step in, who's drawn by the low barriers to entry, attractive margins, and the chance to start with a fully built and optimized kitchen. Restaurants change hands all the time, but in pizza, the new owners generally keep the old name. To outsiders, nothing changes, and the fabric of the neighborhood is left undisturbed. In this sense, pizza shops are timeless spaces that outlast their owners, and the true failure rate is hidden behind thousands of private backroom deals. Still, some spots are simply too troubled or too specific to take over. Bad locations, poor layouts, damaged reputations, or unrealistic asking prices can deem them unsellable. And this is the visible
failure rate that our data captures. In Midtown, though, permanent closures are even rarer. The neighborhood's unparalleled foot traffic and opportunity give it the third lowest closure rate for independent pizzeras in the city. In a neighborhood saturated with old school joints stuck in their ways, Pops broke through by doing what others wouldn't. They didn't reinvent New York pizza, they polished it. You can go to a lot of locations and find out which one is canned, which one is fresh. One of our bestselling slices is a spinach mushroom slice. Cut the mushroom fresh, put the spinach on top, you love it.
Some people ask us like, "Oh, it's a spinach mushroom. What else do you do to it? Like it's just fresh veggies. That's what it kind of boils down to. We keep fresh things right in the morning. The first thing these guys did taste the sauce. It's no good. Throw it all out. We kept the cheese slice around 3 350 depending on the location. You can't go past that. When you go to a lot of locations, their pizza pies, they're maybe 18 in or 16 in. I'm What are you guys doing? Make it bigger. Make it nicer. And give them something that they're going to eat. They're going to enjoy. So a customer can come in, purchase one slice, have it for lunch, go back to work.
I think a lot of greed comes into it. I think a lot of people like, "Oh yeah, make it smaller, less this, less that." Like cost cutting methods, dude. It's a slice of cheese. Like what are you saving a nickel? Like what are you doing a nickel on this? Yeah. I think one of the best feelings is whenever a tourist comes in, they've been around the city for a couple of days. I'm punching the slices and it's a family of four or five. They pull out the credit card and I could see the nerve setting in cuz they're like, "Oh, is it $80, $90?" And then when they see like 30 bucks, they're like, "What? That's it? You got everything?" I'm like, "I got everything." And the drinks, I got everything.
Fresh cut vegetables, homemade sauces, extra-l large 22-in pies, and affordability are the pillars of Pops Pizza. Their bestsellers, vodka, margarita, and spinach mushroom make up 50% of all sales. But while pizzeras can adapt to any footprint, tiny spaces can eventually become a liability. Pop's first store is a textbook example of the ultra efficiency that only pizzeras can achieve. A 300 ft hole in the wall, standing room only with mini fridges crammed below the counters, shelves stacked to the ceiling, and workers weaving around each other to keep up with orders. Of all the ingredients, dough is the limiting factor. When you don't have the space for refrigeration and storage, there's a hard cap on how many pies they can make
in a day. Scaling was the only way Nick and Ricky could meet the growing demand. The brothers took over a struggling pizzeria a few blocks away. From the outside, it looks like a bigger, comfier pops where regulars can dine in, but inside it's the engine of their operation. In the basement, a specialist makes dough from scratch for all three locations. This hub and smoke model is identical to the big chains, just at a much smaller scale. Staff there focus on assembly, baking, and service. The dough guy in the basement focuses on dough and store space that's normally wasted by mixers and flower bags turns into room for more customers or higher throughput. The third and newest pops is
where the two brothers have put their model to the test. Everyone wants tourist dollars, but few survived the rent. 5 minutes from Time Square on a block notorious for revolving smoke shops and tourist traps, Nick and Ricky have planted their flag. They're betting they can provide customers around the clock with quality, service, value, and ample seating while still turning a profit on one of the city's most brutal blocks. When we opened up back in 19, we were one of five. We're one of like 17 18 now. You're fighting for the same customer. We'll compete. We'll see what happens. And I think we're going to win in the end.
It's easy to say, "Oh, you know what? I got my customer base. I'm doing like 10, you know, 50 pies, 100 pies a day. I'm good. I don't need to worry about it. That can stop tomorrow cuz another guy can open up and he can do it a little bit better than you and he can be a little more courteous than you and he can have a better price point than you. He can beat you in something. So, you got to make sure you are on top of everything you could be on top of. On a unit level, each pop store grosses $95,000 in monthly gross revenue for an annual run rate of $1.1 million. With two stores at maturity and a third still ramping up, Pops grosses a systemwide annual revenue of $2.2 million. 70% of sales are slices and 30% are whole pies. Four out of five orders
are for takeout or delivery, while just one in five is din. Their operating margin sits at 17.5%, higher than most pizza and fast food chains. Their trade-off for volume with value inherently limits profits, but as Pops scales, these margins should only improve. Gone are the dog days when Nick and Ricky made every pie and served every customer from their cramped shop on 57th. Pops has entered an entirely new stage of growth that reflects the persistence of both brothers. In some ways, they've pulled off the impossible by opening and scaling an entirely new pizzeria to multiple stores in New York's most competitive neighborhood without investors or industry connections. Ultimately, the city's relentless competition is a reminder for
the two brothers to never lose sight of the fundamentals that got them here. I love my customers. You chose to be here. You chose me. Why would I short change you? We have so many customers. They'll come from a different state. They'll fly in suitcase in hand. They're like, "My dad sent me here." And he said, "First thing you need to do before you go to the hotel, go to Pops." Yeah. I'm going to ask you about your day. And that's how I got to know so many of our customers over the years. And I know them by their order. I know them by their name. I know their kids. I tell our guys, respect our customers. Respect
even the tourists. If you're not a regular, respect them, too. There was a time where it was not busy. And I'm like, I wish for times like this. And now when I see that, I'm like, I will not take it for granted. What can I get for you guys today? One vodka, one spinach mushroom. New York City is also a destination for woodfire Neapolitan pizza. The sophisticated, technical gourmet predecessor to the classic New York slice, Morino is one of the city's leading Neapolitan pizzeras growing over 17 years from a tiny Brooklyn shop into an international chain with stores across NYC, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and Malaysia. Owner Matthew was new to pizza, but not to restaurants. When he
opened the very first Mo in 2008, he turned his back to everything he had built his career on as a chef. In 2008, it was really time for me to become my own boss. The first day I put an apron and a coat on, you know, doing my apprenticeship in the kitchen back in Belgium. That was the goal. I took a break and I started to work on my first restaurant. You put together a menu based on what you know, what you think will work. But no matter what direction I was taking in this realm of a French restaurant, I could not find confidence that what I would do would really be noticed. A lot of the brainstorming I was doing at that time was happening at pizzeras.
I would see this fire raging and I would see the pizza and the vibe and I could feel it would it just was good. And I could see that two guys could make food for a dining room of 30 40 guests easily and then there would be to go order. So there was different streams of revenue. I realized quickly that pizza wasn't selling that cheap but they're made of flour and tomatoes and those are really not that expensive even if you buy the best of the best. In pizzeria check average was low so you had to do volume but volume was somewhat easy to attain due to the popularity of the product itself. On one end the price point is low so it's not that great but on the other hand you were pulling
customer from a very wide range of people. If you were to compare a pizzeria and how it runs from the back end with a French restaurant who had a guard m a fish station a meat station. associ and vegetable station. The basic setup is quickly six, seven guys. With a pizza setup, you could go as low as one guy and one dishwasher and be in business. It had pretty much everything to be a winner. It was different than everything I had ever done. I had never worked in the pizzeria, but I knew how to work a product. I knew how to take something and take an idea and just refine it. I'd done this for many, many years. Forged in some of the most brutal kitchens of New York and Europe, Matthew's confidence was born from
competence. Back then, he was just 30 years old, and he knew mastering dough didn't require Italian bloodlines or family secrets, just technical skill and relentless discipline. He broke from tradition to create an original dough tailored for local pallets. Marrying the trademark char and puffy cornishon of classic Neapolitan with a crisp structure of a New York slice. The result is a hybrid that travels well and can still be eaten by hand. A lot of these Neapolitan pizzeria will have a very floppy bottom. The dough is not really boxable and I don't really like that at all. Even old folks in Napoli don't like their pizza to be watery. I think that a perfect Neapolitan pizza is a Neapolitan pizza
that has been a little Americanized. The bottom is a little bit more sound. You can actually cut the pizza and hold it. Neapolitan pizzas must be cooked to order, served whole, and eaten fresh from the oven. They can't sit on a counter, be reheated, or sold as slices. Achieving the signature char demands precision, special ovens, and technique. Neapolitan pizzeras operate more like full service restaurants, competing on quality, service, and atmosphere. They thrive in slower residential neighborhoods where people make time to dine out rather than the commuter hubs where food is a pit stop. Slice shops dominate in the fast-paced hightraic areas like Midtown. And Matthew has followed the opposite strategy,
expanding from Williamsburg into the East Village and the Upper West Side. Independent pizzeras in the Upper West Side and Upper East Side enjoy the lowest closure rate in all of New York City as their stores become ingrained in the routines of these generational affluent long-term residents that make up these neighborhoods. On the flip side, trendy, fast-changing areas like the East Village and Chelsea are notorious for high turnover. The young transient populations make loyalty hard to secure, while the density of competition makes maintaining hype a constant grind. Yet, Morino has thrived in all these neighborhoods for nearly 20 years by maximizing volume across channels with its unique product.
Takeout customers can buy two pies and get one free, while dining guests get a free bottle of wine with two pizzas, enabling the concept to win on carry out value and dining experience in ways that no true Neapolitan spot or slice shop could replicate. Much like Pops, the heart of Morino lies in a basement. Every morning, a two-person team completes production for all three New York stores in under four hours. By hand, they mix dough, portion thousands of rounds, grind parmesan, and prep toppings. Every week, this crew will produce over 4,000 dough balls, plus hundreds of pounds of cheese, mushrooms, tiramisu, and antipasti. By 10:00 a.m., everything gets loaded on a truck in Williamsburg and gets delivered
to the two other stores. Matthew's trusted lieutenant, Alberto, oversees the day-to-day, fitting his Fiat into impossible parking spaces and working out of offices across all three stores. For all restaurants, scale means cheaper ingredients. But for most high volume concepts like grilling burgers or frying chicken, much of the cooking still needs to happen to order in a high- rent kitchen and in a busy neighborhood. Scale does not change the labor and real estate cost per store. Pizza, however, is fundamentally different. Once a second store is open, pizzeras can centralize dough production and re-engineer their business to another level of efficiency. As more stores are added, costs fall and margins rise as staff are only needed to
assemble and bake. So, labor costs and real estate costs go down. For pizza, scale is the profit model. This is the playbook everyone is chasing. In New York State, nearly one in four pizzeras run two or more stores. In Manhattan and Brooklyn, home to some of the most ambitious, well-funded restaurant tours, one in five run three or more locations. Even after leaving French fine dining, Matthew has never abandoned its standards. I'm an old school European chef and I work in a very simple way. This is a place where we grate the cheese, we slice the soapada, we do our own dessert, we break the eggs, we meal our tomatoes. Nothing is ever prepackaged. Nothing is No, no, no. I
would not love my business the way I love it if it was any different than this. It is truly enjoyable to me when I see how we work. It looks like my mom or my dad could work there. They would know what to do. Morino's dough is the foundation of its moat. Distinct in flavor, appearance, and performance as a hybrid Neapolitan that's nearly impossible to replicate. Tiny variations in hydration, temperature, measurements, and timing can dramatically affect the final product. This is why Domino's and Papa John's still gross billions every year, selling ready-made dough to franchises who willingly pay a premium to avoid the
complexity of bread making. Matthew developed Morino's dough through years of experimentation and trips to Italy and has perfected it over nearly two decades of high volume service. But most owners are not like Matthew. Many get into the pizza business for simplicity. They want a fast, forgiving, foolproof dough that can be prepared by anyone. To meet this demand, manufacturers have created highly processed flowers fortified with additives that make pizza dough behave like pancake mix. Open the bag, add water, and it's done. These engineered flowers are the norm, not just in pizzas, but also in donuts and bagels, too. It's why most slices in New York City will look and taste the
same, with the only real difference being the toppings. Matthew rejects the status quo and holds little respect for the majority who rely on these industrial flowers under the guise of tradition. Some of these convenience slice, most of these guys, they are in a commodity business and they sell a slice that is dirt cheap made with potassium bromate enhanced flour. It's a highly cancerroen, you know, compound that has been identified as dangerous. It makes the pizza super easy to do. You could be wrong with the water by a little margin. You could be wrong with the mixing and the fermentation, the hydration, the gluten development, not overm mix, not undermix, require knowledge, require
understanding. It really is a science. These highly engineered flour take all the guesswork out of this. You just put the water, mix it, and the result it's always crisp. It always come out right. And that's probably what you've been eating in your square pepperoni slice. But it comes at a cost. I sometimes feel bad for the baker who really understand his craft and really dove in deep into the wonderful world of making bread and sells a loaf for $6. when some guys just mix some dough using those highly engineered product and come up with a pretty good pizza and sells it for three. I would never lower myself to sell things that I would not serve to my family.
You will never find a bag of this in any of my pizzeria. It's a sad thing that a lot of people use that product. Potassium bromate is banned in the European Union, the UK, Canada, Brazil, China, India, and even most of Africa. The United States is one of the only developed nations that still allows this carcinogen in its food supply. And General Mills All Trump's flour, widely regarded as the gold standard flour for American pizzeras, is still formulated with potassium bromine. Ultimately, Neapolitan pizzeras can charge more for their specialty product, wider menus, and cozy dining experiences, but those premiums are easily offset by the higher labor and real estate costs. Matthew is a master of details. For him, fine dining is
defined not just by quality, but also by precision. Morino kitchens are like submarines. There is no wasted space. There is no void between station. Everything is occupied by something that is necessary in the process of making the pizza. A well organized kitchen is low stress, has high output, high retention rate among the staff and lower payroll and also promotes quality consistency. If it takes one step for you to go from where the plate is to where you're going to assemble the plate and you do a thousand plate a day, that's a thousand step. If that pile of plate is three step down, that's 3,000
step to accomplish the same amount of work. The minimal amount of step should be made in order for you to accomplish a task. The more you repeat the same movement, the better you get at it and eventually you become like an artist at it. A lot of pizzeria owner tend to be working by themsel. I embrace the total opposite. I do not believe that a pizza that is made by me is going to taste better than a pizza made by someone who works with me. With the right direction and the right path and the right tools, anyone can accomplish the product. And this is what will allow you to scale. If a chef knows precisely what he wants, he can explain anyone precisely how it's done and that person
can then deliver the product whether the chef is there or not. For Morino, it's not just how the pizza's made, but it's also how it gets to the customers. All deliveries are handled by a private courier service because Matthew won't gamble his product on gig workers who have no stake in the customer experience. His exacting standards seem fundamentally incompatible with global expansion. And yet, Motorino has organically grown into an international chain with more stores in Asia than in New York itself. While the product put the pizzeria on the map, it's these systems that have made it scalable. Mo's expansive footprint has been achieved not through franchising, but by selective licensing. Nearly 20
years later, it remains a powerhouse without a single penny of outside investment. The average Morino grosses $176,000 a month for an annual run rate of $2.1 million per store. Across its New York City portfolio, the chain generates $6.3 million annually. Over half of its sales come from carry out and delivery. With a dedicated production facility and finely tuned processes, Morino's store level operating margin hovers at 24%, a feat in the blue chip neighborhoods of Williamsburg, the Upper West Side, and the East Village. While most restaurants target food and labor costs at roughly 60% of revenue, Morino holds these costs at 52% despite operating in one of the world's most expensive cities.
When it comes to product, Matthew is no traditionalist. But it's his old school values that have singularly driven Morino's success in the single most competitive pizza market in the country. I'm not interested to put my face on social media. As a matter of fact, I dread that and I'm trying to stay as far away from a camera or a post as possible. This is a game where there's a lot of guys who believe that they have to be there and inevitably they have to kiss some ass here and there. And I rather move out in the wilderness with my dog in a hut than having to do this. When I think about Morino, I don't just think of a pizza on the plate. I think
about a little company that started 18 years ago that now has about 80 staff member in New York City who are married with other staff members. Some have kids. Some of them have worked since day one. There's a whole little cocoon of people and business and aspiration and dedication all in the hearts of New York City. It's a beautiful thing. Are we the number one pizzeria in New York City? I don't know. Well, the New York Times seems to think at some point that we were and others seem to think that we are. Do I think? I don't know. I like brown hair. Some people like blonde At the end [clears throat] of the day, this whole thing does not matter at all.
This is just a press thing. What matters to me is that people come to us, they need to get their product, they need to get it on time and at the best possible price. This is what makes us exist, not a ranking. This is the most important to me. When you have a purpose in a neighborhood, you are in business. This is the real business. Pizza is a dramatically different business on the West Coast. Unbound by tradition and supported by a wealthy, sprawling population, California is a prime battleground for players of all sizes who are eager to establish themselves as a local standard. It's a top three market for nearly every big chain. Ultimately, more than one out of every two pizzeras in the Golden State
belongs to a chain. Whether that's an independent staking out neighborhoods or corporations taking over cities. Yet California shares New York's exceptional stability. The statewide failure rate sits below 9%, meaning over 90% of pizzeras here trade hands instead of shutting down. Even among independents, turnover is low. But in this healthconscious market, they must work harder to stand out. In Los Angeles, Little Dynamite sits at the forefront of this new wave, pushing the boundary, not just on toppings, but with dough. New Jersey native Kyle has blended the shattered glass cheese crown of Detroit style pan pizza, the rustic sauce on top tradition of Sicilian square pies, the diverse array of
California produce, and the light tangy character of San Francisco sourdough into something distinctly his own. People on the East Coast eat pizza every day. They're all walking, whereas LA, you have to drive everywhere. So like you have to like go in with the planned. Yeah. You like want to go get your pizza and everyone's trying to be a little bit healthier I would say overall. So like walks it's more of a treat here. It's less of a commodity more of like a well I'm going to have pizza so let's make it good. Little Dynamite is the culmination of an 18-year odyssey. Kyle's worked in pizzeras since he was 16 slinging pies across New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. By 2018
he decided to bet on himself. first bootlegging slices at underground pop-ups, then graduating to a food truck where he lived paycheck to paycheck before saving up to open this brick and mortar. To him, there's nothing sacred about East Coast techniques, ingredients, or recipes, Little Dynamite uses the same high-end mozzarella and pepperonis as even the best New York City slice shops. But even 3,000 m away, California pizzeras can outrun the shadow of New York. At the end of the day, pizza is really simple. Like there is a craft to it, but there's it's no secret science or any kind of sacred thing. With like East Coast, there is that protective mystique of this is our recipe. It's just very guarded.
I guess it just helps them sell pizzas because you can only get this here because it hinges on the water in Manhattan or whatever where, you know, obviously that's not true, but it's part of the game. So, it would be a little bit silly for us to try to say that it's some kind of old family recipe when it's not. Like, I figured it out in my apartment like five, six years ago. But, I feel like if I said that on the East Coast, I wouldn't get laughed out. I wouldn't get the same respect in like an East Coast shop. Pizza is easy to get into if you just like spend 500 bucks on a rock box and get a couple bus tubs and start making dough with your hands. Like, that's exactly what I did. Even when it sucked,
I just didn't stop. I'm a college dropout. I was just like, I'm going to make this work. The gap in perception, recognition, and prestige has created two very different cultures. New school Los Angeles pizzeras like Little Dynamite have embraced a spirit of transparency and collaboration. There's a guy over here. It's more of a popup, but he's there every Friday. And he's always got extra product cuz he's not always open. So, if we need cheese, like he's our guy. And if he needs pepperoni, we're his guy. We're just looking out for each other. If a customer were to come in and be like, "Oh my god, I just got an oonie. Let me give you like starter tips."
Like, we're all very willing to like help people out. We just want to see people like have fun. And also, it's cool to see people like progress in their pizzas and like have their pizzas look better, the photos that they show. Yeah. Um, so sometimes it's pretty impressive. Pizza sells everywhere. The question is how well. Independent pizzeras in LA face a 12% failure rate, nearly three times that of chains. Little Dynamite is just 2 years old, but it's following the path of Pops and Morino and staking its long-term success on winning the neighborhood. They've anchored themselves in Marv Vista, a stronghold ruled exclusively by independent pizzeras, and they've carved out a middle ground between the expensive
touristy Neapolitan scene of Venice and the cheap chains that dominate Culver City, Palms, and Sautel. Still, Kyle and his wife Courtney have kept things lean and scrappy. They opted to build and launch their 750 ft store for just $60,000 by buying used ovens and assembling counters from tables and sheet metal. Their space is already optimized for future scale. This low overhead means they don't need massive volume to survive. And because they didn't spend the capital of a Domino's to open, Little Dynamite has the freedom and runway to grow with the neighborhood. The pizzeria grosses on average $70,000 a month for an annual run rate of $840,000.
Locals are the backbone of the business as seven out of every 10 orders is for carry out with the remaining coming through third party delivery. And as a fully bootstrapped husband and wife venture, their operating margin sits at 35%. For now, Courtney and Kyle are still behind the counter with no immediate plans to scale. Just because you can make a good pizza doesn't mean that you could run a good business. We spent barely any money on everything. We were both punk rock kids growing up. DIY is just how you do everything. We're not made of money, so there was no other choice but to be scrappy. I grew up on construction sites, so like my dad was like having me do demo as a kid. And I think that like really
instilled like I'm the tool user in this partnership and I'm just the tool. No, but it's just one of those things I'm really proud of. Venice is one of LA's hottest and wealthiest neighborhoods. Tourists and locals pack the boardwalk and flood the expensive boutiques, celebrity restaurants, and luxury retailers of Abbott Kenny Boulevard. But in the '90s, before all the opulence and gentrification, it was rundown, desolate, and dangerous. That's when Richie opened up Abbotts. 1995, St. Patrick's Day, we opened.
There were no other pizzeras in the neighborhood. There was probably a couple out on Venice Beach. The 99 cent slice or whatever, but up and down Abocinian and around the neighborhood, there were basically no other pizzeras around. The neighborhood was borderline sketchy with a lot of artists and musicians and creative people in and around Venice. And there was some gang activity actually right behind us here in Oakwood. You have the V13 and Shoreline Crips were here and they were waring with the Culver City gangs. I actually became halfway friends with some of the homeless people and some of the local ex gang members and people on the street. Better friends with them than I was with, you
know, of the local business people or any of the politicians. Then it became trendy. Then it became touristy. And at this point, it's almost like running on fumes because there's so many big corporations that have come in over the years and opened up their flagship stores here. So, they don't even necessarily care about doing business in the shops because they just need it for like a commercial. Abbotts is the oldest pizzeria in Venice and one of the oldest in LA under original ownership. In a strip now lined with $500 sunglasses and Michelin restaurants, it stands apart as a barebones counter service paper plate
slice shop and one of the last surviving unpretentious, accessible, and gritty landmarks of old Venice. Richie was born and raised in the Bronx. He moved west with his brother Tommy in the early '90s, convinced that California Pizza had a long way to go. They were not restaurant tours, just two New Yorkers who knew what benchmark to aim for. Ironically, Abbott's 30-year legacy was not built on Italian ancestry, East Coast traditions, or even family recipes. My brother was working, he's way up in that pizza business in Boston, and it was an Argentinian woman who ran that pizzeria. When we came out here, we used the same sauce and dough recipe that they were using, which I think is
delicious. It's interesting to watch a lot of these videos nowadays and listen to the quote unquote pizza experts. I can remember going into the city growing up, going to Yankee games, going to museums, going into work with my dad and my buddies. It was a big huge slice, loaded with sauce, loaded with cheese. But this whole thing of, you know, oh, they hold it up nowadays on the video and then there's a flop and it's like, oh, that's not New York slice. I don't remember that growing up. For me, it was like that. You needed the plate. You know, you could fold it if you wanted to. Then again, everyone likes to categorize and quote unquote put things in a box. For Angelenos, Richie and his brother
embodied enough of that New York spirit for Abbotts to carry an aura of East Coast authenticity. As the neighborhood evolved into the early 2010s, they adapted further to local pallets with viral innovations like bagel seasoning crust and a salad pizza topped with feta, avocado, and lemon olive oil dressing. These trends cemented Abbotts as a California legend. And while their success has attracted copycats who now pedal comparable items on their menu, Abbotts did it first. 30 years later, Richie accepts imitation as part of the game. A lot of people when they eat their pizza, they'll just throw the crust out and when it has the seeds on there and the dough is delicious, they want to
finish it to the last bite. When you're going to start a new business or be successful in business, a lot of people think they have to come up with some sort of new idea or gadget gimmick. That's not necessarily true for the majority of people who are successful in business. What they do is they'll take an idea that's already been established and just put their unique twist on it and make it special in that way. Abbotts grew up with the neighborhood and as Venice became wealthier, trendier, and more popular, so did the pizzeria. Richie never once considered opening a second store or swapping the paper plates for porcelain. For him, running this one store has been more than enough
work for a lifetime. As the first mover, his perspective is naturally simplistic, almost reductive. The most important thing is to make a good quality product, to have good service, to keep the place clean, to be consistent. The dough has to be made fresh and delicious. The sauce should be delicious. The cheeses should be fresh and delicious and high quality and the vegetables and all the toppings and the meats properly cooked and prepared. The most important thing is when you put everything together and you put it in your mouth, you have a nice experience. Abbotts grosses $107,000 a month for an annual run rate of $1.3 million.
60% of sales are for takeout and delivery while 40% are dine in. His operating margin sits at 10%. These days, Richie is an absentee owner by choice. He hasn't been behind the counter in years. His staff run everything, and he no longer keeps the same watchful eye on portions, waste, efficiency, and prices like he once did. It's impossible for even Richie to say if Abbottz would be as successful had he opened the pizzeria today. After 30 years, he's finally hung up his apron. In December, Richie finally sold Abbott's Pizza, and the name, recipes, menu, and staff are all expected to remain the same under the new owner.
I was planning on going to a different state for several years now, but the pizzeria kept me here. It's been quite a ride here running this place. Quite a roller coaster, as life always is. But I think at this point, it's time for this old boy, this old pizza boy to ride off into the sunset. I am going to do it with my head held high because I feel good about the way I've treated people here in the neighborhood being a part of the neighborhood. I have people come in with their children and now their children are coming in with their partners. So, it's been, you know, a generation and a half. So, it would be nice to keep this place going in good hands and take care of my staff, which is really the heart and soul of the
pizzeria. Without Richie and Tommy, there would be no Abbotts and certainly no affordable pizzeria on Abbott Kiny Boulevard. Yet, even as the founders, he and his brother are simply the first in what will likely be a long line of owners. And the legacy of these two brothers will be known only to the staff and early customers, most of whom have long since left the neighborhood. Pizzeras are living reflections of their owners. Whether it's Matthew's precision at Morino, Nick and Ricky's relentless hustle at Pops, Courtney and Kyle's scrappy punk rock ethos at Little Dynamite, or Richie's steady old soul wisdom at Abbotts. As we've seen across New York and California, the key to success is not the water or some guarded
family recipe. It's in the nature of the craft itself. Simple enough to welcome noviceses, flexible enough to support any vision, and yet still deep enough to reward innovation, and lucrative enough to fuel even the greatest of ambitions.
