Salvatore lets us in on running a longtime family-run pizzeria

Villa Reale Pizzeria
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Reale family opened Villa Reale Pizzeria in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1976. Born in Italy, Salvatore is known in the Pittsburgh community as a “Godfather of Pizza.”

(To reach our success) — It has taken hard work, great customer service, and great pizza that our customers have come back time and time again for 35 years. Customers stop in before Pittsburgh Penguins games to enjoy good Italian food and a pizza that has been a part of downtown for 35 years. Our pizza is made with 100 percent Italian love. We make our pizza dough fresh every- day and the pizza sauce has been a secret sauce from day one. We never changed the way we make or served our pizza and customers love the way it tastes.

We use a lunch strategy to have your pizza ready to serve as soon as you order it. The order comes through our POS system and orders are placed in different sections so that your order goes right to the place where it needs to be made fast and fresh. We have an experienced staff that has been making pizza for over 35 years. With the help of our POS system, we process our orders super fast and get that food to our customers
as soon as possible so that they may enjoy their lunch break.

My management secret is that if you’re honest and loyal, hard work and determination will pay off in the end. Paying bills on time and running a shop the right way will lead you into a profitable pizza shop — not taking short cuts. Working hard and doing the right thing will lead to good things. Keep your customers happy and give them what they want — good Italian pizza. Hard work pays off in the end!

With the help of my mother and father who passed away, and my wife and two kids, Dominic and Frances, along with countless others — my sister, my brother, a lot of my cousins –– we manage to run the operation since 1976. We all felt that hard work and striving to make the best home cooked Italian meals that we all ate — we shared these with all of our customers, who enjoyed these great meals. We are all committed to serving downtown Pittsburgh for years and years to come. We have a belief of giving our customers what they want and showing them how the Italian people thrive on making great food. We all have worked so hard these last 35 years, and I have to commend my family for following in my dream to have a pizza shop in downtown Pittsburgh. We were the first and we will continue to show how hard we work and we are committed to prove we do have great food and we do love our customers.

We show a family atmosphere as a customer that you are at our home with us. My father and I would go to work early every morning to prepare everything and my mother would make everything homemade. My wife works so hard for so many years, being there so early to make sure every- thing is running so smooth. My kids have adapted to the new ways of improving through technology with Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and also using the Internet to start running in-house ads for specials. So we have come a long way from right food orders to moving into the future with new technology to keep up with the times. My kids show me that it is time to leave behind the ’70s and move into the new age of selling pizza. My kids are so wonderful, wanting to be part of our history, and I love that from them.