Tony Gemignani is a 13-time World Pizza Champion. His original pizza concept in San Francisco is among the country’s top-grossing independent restaurants, with more than $13 million in sales last year. He founded an International School of Pizza that has trained some of the country’s top pizza makers.
And he’s okay with people dipping their pizza crust in ranch dressing.
“Do you know how much money we make on ranch in a year?” he laughs. “If you’re giving it away, you’re sort of an idiot.”
It has to be the house-made ranch dressing, of course, which is sold in two-ounce servings for $1 throughout his growing pizza empire, which began with the iconic Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, a mecca of sorts for pizza aficionados.
Gemignani is famously pizza-style agnostic.
At Tony’s, guests can choose pizza made authentically in 12 different regional styles, from the Napoletana, to a New Yorker or a square Detroit-style with just the right mix of brick cheese, mozzarella and white cheddar. The margherita is a top seller, but, for those who can’t decide, there’s a tasting menu.
When it opened in 2009, he said it was the first pizza restaurant of its kind, with seven different ovens, from a wood-fired to coal, Rotoflex gas and the (now trendy) electric.
“Nobody knew electric ovens in the pizza industry back then, over 15 years ago,” he said. “It’s the hot trend now, but I was one of the first to have a Cuppone electric pizza oven.”
Tony's Pizza Napoletana is among the Top 100 Independent Restaurants this year. | Photo courtesy of Tony's.
Before opening Tony’s, Gemignani had already built a reputation as a pizza master. He trained in Italy at the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli. And in 2007, he was the first non-Neapolitan to win the World Pizza Cup in Naples, Italy.
Pizza, he contends, is very regional and specific. But don’t ask him to choose his favorite child.
“For me, if it’s made right, I celebrate every style of pizza,” said Gemignani. “Why can’t you say deep dish, a tavern, a cracker thin, a Neapolitan, a Roman can all be accepted?
“Pizza is like pasta,” he continued. “You can’t say I love bucatini, but I hate spaghetti, or I love manicotti, but I hate penne. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Tony’s, the mothership, is a full-service restaurant with more than pizza on the menu. There are other Italian classics, like chicken parmigiana, pastas and even burgers.
The average check is about $31 and the restaurant has only 140 seats. So the fact that it has made the annual Top 100 Independent Restaurant list indicates the restaurant does tremendous volume, with close to 450,000 diners last year.
Not long after opening Tony’s, Gemignani added the sister restaurant Slice House next door, which is served by a shared kitchen below the roughly 3,800-square foot combined space. Slice House is more of a fast-casual, by-the-slice outlet.
And, in fact, Gemignani is also growing Slice House as a franchised brand. There are now 10 stand-alone Slice House locations, including one company-owned unit, with another 150 in development, moving into Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Idaho and Tennessee.
Tony Gemignani at a Slice House location in Burbank, Calif. | Photo by Lisa Jennings
Slice House franchised locations don’t have quite the range of styles of the original Tony’s, but guests can sample four: Detroit, Grandma Style, New York or Sicilian.
The dough is made in house using the same poolish starter from Tony’s, but Slice House has a more-simplified scratch-kitchen model, Gemignani said.
“A lot of people say you’re this independent restaurant guy who was a voice in the industry … and now you’re a franchise guy with a chain,” said Gemignani.
But he notes that he ran a school for pizza making in San Francisco for 15 years where he certified operators. “Franchising is pretty much the same thing,” he said. “It’s still an operator who wants to learn how to make great pizza.”
But this is not fast-casual pizza in the style of a Blaze or MOD Pizza, where customers build their own. He said those brands struggled after the pandemic in part because (at least at the time) they didn’t have what Gemignani calls the Big Four features necessary for pizza concepts to make money: to-go/catering/delivery/dine-in.
In addition, he argues the pizza at Slice House, like at Tony’s, is more elevated and chef driven.
Toppings might include options, for example, like purple potatoes, along with house-made sausage, Avorio mozzarella, peppadews and, yes, pineapple—but it’s fresh pineapple, not chunks out of a can.
The Detroit-style pizza at Slice House. | Photo courtesy of Mark Fiorito.
Gemignani develops regional pizzas that are unique to certain franchisees. In Los Angeles, for example, the Margott family’s growing number of Slice House units feature The Angeleno, a Grandma-style pizza with vodka sauce, Avorio mozzarella, applewood-smoked bacon, thick and thin-cut pepperoni and sausage, ricotta, house-made hot honey and basil.
Under the Tony Gemignani Restaurant Group umbrella, there is also Pizza Rock in Las Vegas, a big box restaurant with more than 250 seats, which Gemignani described as “Tony’s on steroids.”
Pizza Rock also has licensed outlets in stadiums and casinos. The group also includes a bar called Capo’s, a bakery called Toscano Brothers, and an Italian market (Giovanni Italian Specialties).
Gemignani has spent the past year or so building an infrastructure for expansion, which will primarily focus on Slice House.
“For me, consistency is the biggest thing,” he said. “Growing the team to be able to not only have the support, but to have the consistency at every location.”
Tony’s, meanwhile, was No. 6 on the Guide to the Best Pizzerias in the World this year (and No. 2 among those in the U.S., behind Una Pizza Napoletana in New York).
It’s the fourth year Tony’s has been honored in the guide, which called the Neapolitan pizza excellent, but added, “the type that will surprise you the most is the Detroit Style, truly remarkable, with a generous topping, just as it should be, and a really interesting bite.”
And in Naples earlier this year, Gemignani also won again—this time for a vegan pizza dubbed “Mission Impossible,” which was named Pizza of the Year.
It was another example of Gemignani’s commitment to authenticity while remaining open-minded to consumer trends.
“It was a wood-fired, blistering, beautiful pizza,” with Impossible Meat seasoned like a taco, Selfish Cow vegan cheese, beans, cilantro, lime, a vegan crema and Sriracha, he said proudly. “Even my own staff thought it was real meat.”