No matter how you slice it, Anthony Russo is a success story. He developed one of the first New York-style pizzeria concepts in Houston. After perfecting his family’s recipes for his own restaurants, he took the concept and started franchising it. That concept was Russo’s New York Pizzeria.
Today, you can find Russo’s New York Pizzeria all across Houston and in every major suburb: Katy, The Woodlands and League City, among others. Yet, it is no typical franchise. No matter which location it is, almost everything is made in-house, from the pizza dough to the gnocchi.
Russo is the story of a chef who made it: someone who was able to take a successful concept and package it in a way that, in the hands of the right people, can be replicated over and over again.
In part one of this Chef Chat, learn how he got his start, grew his business from one restaurant to four and then started franchising his concept to others. Come back for part two tomorrow, where Russo will talk about the food NY Pizzeria has to offer, how it’s continued to grow and what else is on the horizon.
AR: My parents moved in 1978 from New Jersey to Galveston and I grew up in the restaurant business. They opened a place called Russo’s Italian restaurant on Seawall. I was 12 years old at the time, so after school my homework was cooking in the kitchen. I followed in my dad’s footsteps and we would cook with chefs from all over Italy. Mom is from Sicily and Dad is from Naples. So every summer, we would have chefs from Bologna, Naples and Sicily stay with us. They would work through the summer time, so that’s how I learned how to cook all of this different Italian cuisine. It was fine dining.
When I was 17 or 18 years old, I attended college part-time and I opened my own business. I called it Russo’s Pizza. That’s how I started. It was 800 square feet. I had a pizza oven, a dough mixer and two tables. That’s it. I could only sit eight people. That’s how small it was. That was ’85 or ’86.
AR: Yeah!
AR: I loved the business part of it. I had spent so much time in the kitchen. We made everything from scratch. We used to make our own homemade pastas, our own sauces, our own chicken stock, our lasagnas, our meatballs– they were all family recipes. We made it all in house. So, I wanted to take that and develop and expand. Dad was old-school Italian. He didn’t want to expand the concept. “Stay here and you can take over the family business.” But my dream was to open more restaurants.
AR: They retired. They stayed open for about 25 years. I went back and forth from Houston to New Jersey several times over the years and saw several pizzeria concepts. They had pizza by the slice and thin crust pizza. So, I developed a New York style pizza and opened a pizzeria in Clear Lake called Anthony’s Pizzeria. This was in ’88 or ’89.
AR: It’s the ingredients that you use. It has to be high-quality and you need to know what kind of flour to use. I use high-gluten flour with the highest protein. It’s milled in a certain part of Illinois. The flour, the cheese and the sauce is very important. It has to be a thin, crispy crust. You want to be able to get a slice of pizza and fold it so it stands up straight and doesn’t flop on you. That’s your typical New York style pizza.
AR: Thin crust, but our slices tend to be larger than even typical New York-style pizzas because I cut them off 28-inch party pizzas. My slices are 15 inches. They’re huge– twice the size you would get New York!
AR: So, I ran the pizzeria in Clear Lake for four or five years. When my lease expired and moved it to Houston at 4315 Montrose. (Author’s note: It was where Brasserie Max & Julie is now.) It was fine dining Italian. I had that for about five or six years. It was a great location. We used to make some great dishes. I brought back some of the family’s old menu items like veal piccata, shrimp Parmesan, pasta di Mare–some really nice Italian entrées.
But then I went back to the Pizzeria. I opened up a third location, New York pizzeria in the Medical Center. That’s where I brought in the New York-style pizzas again as well as calzone, stromboli and salads– The typical New York-flavored foods.
AR: I saw a trend– casual. I wanted to open up multiple restaurants so it was less hands-on with the business. it was so you didn’t have the huge overhead of hiring a full-service waitstaff and a dining room manager. I just wanted to keep it simple. I just wanted the kitchen manager, a cook, a pizza guy and a kitchen staff.
AR: My lease expired and I was focusing on a new pizzeria concept. So, I stayed with that model for many years. I started developing more upscale casual locations that were simple to operate. My whole goal was to franchise that opportunity– to take my family’s recipes and package it to where I could franchise the concept. It took about eight or nine years to develop the franchise system.
AR: The medical center was my first pizzeria model and my second location was Beechnut. It was a little larger store, had more seating and the concept kept on working so I kept fine-tuning–the operational manuals, the recipes and the training program. Beechnut was very successful. From there, I opened 604 Polk St. downtown, which is still open today. That was 16 years ago. From Polk Street I went to 5727 Westheimer.
AR: That’s right.
AR: Yes. That’s when I sold the Beechnut location to a franchisee. When I started franchising, I sold my existing stores first. I sold Beechnut, I sold Polk Street and then I sold Holcombe. I kept the Westheimer store as my training store. That’s where I trained franchisees.
AR: I wanted to make sure that the recipes were perfect. That, no matter who operates the restaurant, the food is going to taste the same like I would make it. Once I felt confident that part was taken care of, that’s when I was ready to franchise. I wanted to make sure when I handed it off to someone that pizza was going to taste really like New York-style pizza.
The individuals had good chemistry. I liked the couple. They were husband and wife, entrepreneurial, business-minded and they had passion for it. They cared about their business. They were going to be on-site. It wasn’t like, “I’m going to be an investor and I’m just going to operate the restaurant.” They were hands-on.
AR: Yes. Right. And I’d come in to train them and show them how to do it. I teach them how to cook and carry on the family recipe.
AR: Oh wow. The first one was the margarita pizza. Then, the Heart-Healthy Veggie Pizza with artichoke hearts and fresh spinach. That was unique to put on the menu. Most places were doing a basic pepperoni pizza. I only had eight pizzas on the menu at the time. Today, I have a total of 35 or 36 choices.
AR: That’s it. No. In New York and New Jersey, there are pizzerias on almost every block. In Texas, you have a lot of Mexican restaurants on every corner. (laughs) The education part was kind of challenging for me because we make everything from scratch. We don’t buy pizzas from a commissary. When I talk to people about franchising, they start comparing us to Papa John’s or Domino’s pizza like we’re that kind concept, which we’re not. We do everything in-house.
It's the perfect time to franchise Russo's New York Pizzeria and Italian Kitchen and we know the pizza business and what it take to fire up your first restaurant. With 50+ locations and growing, our franchisees have created success built on our flexible design starting 1,500 sq ft. We produce a higher average store volume (AUV $1.134M) than industry average by serving authentic New York-style pizza and unique menu items. Ask about available territories!
