Pandemic forces restaurant to quickly change into pizzeria
This long-gone Delaware pizza is back & it’s helping save a family-owned restaurant
Ryan Cormier, Delaware News Journal
What do you do when your fine dining Italian restaurant is ordered to stop dine-in service? You transform into a pizza shop.
And how do you offer something different and exciting? You resurrect a long-gone pizza pie from a long-gone legendary Delaware pizza place: Zino Pizza, which helped anchor the Christina Mall food court for three decades.
When daughters Vincenza and Margherita Carrieri-Russo decided to transform the family-run Brandywine Hundred eatery into an “old-school pizzeria,” father Vincenzo had a trick up his sleeve — or more likely, under his fluffy, black chef hat.
A dozen years after his old pizza shop Zino’s closed following a 30-year run, Vincenzo decided to bring back its Sicilian pie in early April.
It’s baked in the same Zino pans, using the same four Zino ovens, but now at 1717 Marsh Road. (And, yes, they are the same ovens even though they nearly sparkle thanks to Vincenzo’s diligent care over the years.)
It was in instant hit.
“The Sicilian gave us a heartbeat again. Pizza has saved us,” Vincenza says.