Buono’s, the pizzeria that refuses to stay closed, opens in Gilbert

Buono’s, a longtime East Valley pizzeria now in its third manifestation, opens at 11 a.m. today near the northwest corner of Val Vista and Williams Field in Gilbert.

It takes over the strip-mall end-cap that has been home to a procession of restaurants in recent years, including Zella’s Pizza, Pars Pizza, Geno’s Cheesesteaks, and Burrito Grill.

New York native Vic Buono launched the original Buono’s on the southeast corner of Dobson and Guadalupe in southwest Mesa in 1988 and sold the New York-style pizzeria to employee Jimmy Pante about a decade later.

Pante, another New Yorker, sold Buono’s in 2013. It began going downhill and was sold again in 2017 but closed the following year.

In 2019, Pante’s son, Vinny, noticing the restaurant space was still vacant, partnered with yet another New York expatriate, Steve Cusumano, to give Buono’s a second life.

That life, however, was short-lived, as they soon were forced to change the pizzeria’s name to Amici Pizza.

(Meanwhile, Vic Buono had bought Islands Pizza in Gilbert in 2003 and renamed it Nicantoni’s Pizza. He closed that pizzeria and retired last weekend.)

Now, Jimmy Pante is bringing back Buono’s for a third time, offering basically the same popular thin-crust pizza as the original Buono’s (as well as Amici and Nicantoni’s).

The menu also includes calzones, stromboli, pastas, and hot and cold subs.