A native of upstate New York, Vic Buono didn’t even know there were other styles of pizza.
“I never knew there was ‘New York-style pizza’ until I got out to Arizona,” Buono says. “I thought pizza was pizza. I come out here and there’s California pizza, Chicago pizza…”
But it’s New York-style pizza that’s Buono’s bread and butter, so to speak. Saturday, he celebrates the 10th anniversary of his third East Valley pizzeria, Nicantoni’s in Gilbert.
It’s been a 25-year East Valley career that Buono never anticipated.
Raised in Saugeties, N.Y. – best known as the site of the second Woodstock festival in 1994 – Buono watched his parents operate a string of restaurants, bars, and delis. “And that was the last thing I was ever gonna do,” he says.
His parents moved Vic and his three sisters to Lake Havasu for Buono’s final year of high school. Havasu, he found, was a “one red light town,” adding “I missed those big spring parties by a few years.”
So, after graduating in 1981, he moved back to New York. He wanted to get into graphic art, “but I liked food and a place to live, and being a freelance artist didn’t pay the bills.”
Eventually Buono went to work in an uncle’s pizzerias. “I saw my cousin flipping pizzas and driving around in a new Trans-Am,” he laughs. “I thought, ‘Working in a restaurant might not be so bad after all.'”
Back to Arizona
By 1988, Buono, just 25 years old, was ready to open his own place. His thoughts returned to the Valley. With scouting help from his parents, who had moved to Tucson, and a sister at ASU, he found a former Italian restaurant for sale at Dobson and Guadalupe in Mesa.
Buono’s Pizza was born. It was an overnight success. OK, not quite.
“It was horrible,” Buono recalls. “It was a different concept (than the previous tenant). They did sandwiches and entrees – no pizza.”
After struggling for two years, he was ready to call it quits. “I was gonna put the place up for sale and go back to New York,” he admits. Suddenly, though, business took off.
“I’ve always had good referrals – one person telling another,” Buono says. “Right around that two-year mark, though, it just kinda exploded. Ten people telling 10 others. We had a good run after that.”
The Mesa space soon expanded. A liquor license was obtained. A second pizzeria opened in Gilbert.
After nearly a decade of winning local awards for his pizzas, though, Buono began to feel burned out. He got divorced. He sold Buono’s to an employee who still operates it under the name today.
Buono spent a few restless years looking for what’s next. He bought a chiropractors office. Then a paint-your-own pottery place. He went bankrupt and lost both. He painted houses.
“At 40, I couldn’t find a decent-paying job with no college (degree) and two kids,” he says. “I thought, ‘I better get back into the restaurant business.'”
Second time around
In 2003, he bought Islands Pizza in a strip mall on the northeast corner of McQueen and Warner in Gilbert. Buono renamed it Nicantoni’s, a combination of his two kids’ names – Dominic and Toni.
The 1,100-square-foot space was too small – “We were having growing pains,” he remembers – but he couldn’t afford to expand. That problem was solved four years later when he was hired as a consultant for a new Chandler restaurant called Gennaro’s.
Buono put his consultant’s fee into another 800 square feet, allowing him to add more dining room space and a full bar to Nicantoni’s. He decorated the interior walls with New York-inspired graffiti, and added Big Apple memorabilia to the tables.
He credits his food’s popularity – both at Buono’s and Nicantoni’s – in part to Roma Food, a New Jersey-based supplier whose flavors are familiar to former East Coast residents. “We don’t have the majority of the (East Valley’s) people (as customers), but we have the majority of the East Coast people,” he says.
He also points to his pizza crust. “A lot of the first-timers that come in appreciate how it’s cooked,” he says. “So many people are used to their slices out here just flopping over, of just being kinda mush. They’re like, ‘How do you do it?'”
It’s a formula for success that’s worked for 25 years. “I’ve still got quite a few customers from Buono’s that come in,” he says. “It’s weird seeing the second and third generations. They used to come in when they were like that (holding a hand about three feet above the floor) and now they’ve got kids like that.”
Still the same
Some things haven’t changed. Buono refuses to do delivery, believing it’s more harmful than helpful to a pizzeria. He’s also not a proponent of coupons.
“I can’t give $1 off and get the same net as other pizza places that have coupons for $5 off,” he says. “They’re starting at $17 or $18 a pizza, and I’m at $12, $13.”
Working six long days a week doesn’t lend itself to much of a life outside the pizzeria, but Buono recently bought a ’72 Firebird he’s been spending “too many hours” working on. He also rides a black Harley-Davidson, and hosts a Bike Night every Thursday at Nicantoni’s.
As for the future, Buono says he’d love to open a new place someday, somewhere he could “go bigger and bring it a notch up.” More immediate, though, he’s getting married again at the end of the year.
There’s also his 50th birthday looming in March.
“It’s a little scary,” he admits. “I’m finding I’m not as close to retirement as I was hoping to be.”
He pauses, looks around his restaurant, and laughs.
“I’m hoping to have a heart attack here so I don’t outlive my savings.”
Nicantonii’s, 1430 W. Warner Road, Gilbert (map), is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.(-ish) Monday through Saturday. Info: 480-892-2234 or www.nicantonis.com.
