Call up the Web site owned by Vito’s Pizza and Beer in York, Pennsylvania, (www.vitospizzaandbeer.com) and immerse yourself in the ambiance of a family-owned, honest- to-goodness, Italian-American restaurant. You can almost hear “mangia!&...

I always wonder why more pizzeria operators don’t do more with shrimp. Yes, I know adding any type of seafood to the operation poses a few issues –– buying, storage and cooking — that might be more than some operators want to ...

Amir F. Detroit, Michigan A few years ago I would have said that it was a novelty that we wouldn’t be talking about by now. I didn’t understand it. Boy, was I wrong. Once I started to get requests to assist new and old locations that want...

Our mixer finally crashed and we got a 40-quart vertical cutter mixer (VCM) to replace it. How does this mixer compare against our old 80-quart mixer? A: The first thing to know about the VCM is that it has a much higher mixing speed. The two-speed m...

Pork is media’s darling right now, and operators across the country are happily placing swine in the spotlight. Pork belly. Pork shoulder. Lardo. Speck. Prosciutto. Pancetta. And bacon … always bacon. Pizza is no stranger to pork, showin...

Imagine this scenario: You’ve just launched a series of four pesto-inspired pizzas. To promote your new menu items, you gear up for a one-day promotional event, practically giving away the pizzas. You’ve advertised the heck out of the promo and e...

“Made in house” is a unique marketing mantra that should be on your menu. The more items you prepare from scratch, the more you stand out from your competition across the street. Granted, some items are easier to make than others. And some items ...

Making sausage in your restaurant is easier than you think, and fresh sausage cannot be beat. Take a minute and think about how many dishes use sausage. Go beyond topping your pizza and consider sausage sandwiches and even soups like sausage and roas...

I was born in New York, and I lived there — on and off — for the first 30-something years of my life. During that time I managed to put away more than my share of pizza. And the fact that I was born and raised next door to an Italian bake...

2011 marks the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. As anyone who has ever driven a car in Naples can tell you, it has taken a while for reality to catch up with Giuseppe Garibaldi’s noble vision. The fact is that Italy has always been a l...

Depending on how you look at it, this is either a horrible or a fantastic time in the pizza industry — the entire restaurant industry, really. Just like our nation has divided into political polar opposites, the pizza segment has separated into...

When Facebook was first introduced, the site was the online version of the Wild West, devoted primarily for collegiate use and of little consequence to a young suburban mother like myself. Fast forward a couple of years, and just about everyone I kno...