Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Gristina. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
John, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
Simple . My parents. They came here when they were children both had to work to learn a new language , both had to work to help support their family . Then when it was their own family they took the traditional roles of husband and wife . My Dad worked as much as possible to provide what my mother needed to make a home for all of us . They valued spending time with family but they knew that it was earned and deserved by the time that was spent working to be able to bring that family together for dinners and birthdays and family holidays . To take a sick day meant that there was a doctor or hospital involved , otherwise you pushed through and did your job. You got hurt at work? Ok but can you still work despite being hurt is the question . You took care of your pain or ailments on your own time, not during work where you are getting paid to do a job. Where some of this might sound extreme or being stubborn it in part helps develop character and build the determination needed to deal with obstacles that may occur in other parts of life. Because no matter what happens we still have some “job” or task that we do that has to be completed regardless of what is happening to us personally . Now of course I’m not advocating for an unhealthy obsession with work with disregard for personal health, for me having a strong work ethic turned work into my catharsis, where I could work out my thoughts while being creative at the same time . Where I could run different scenarios in my head and they were mini movie trailers only I could see. As stressful as working in a pizzeria could be , over the years making pizza has turned into therapy for me so whereas when I was younger my work ethic might have made me seems obsessive, as I got older it has become less of a do or die notion and more of a welcome routine of comfort where I can work things out in my head while being creative. So I am eternally grateful to Steve and Ada for showing me the merits of hard work – stress and all.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Growing up in the Bronx as the youngest of four children had both advantages and disadvantages. It was great that my mother and grandmother spoiled me and taught me to cook at the same time, but it was unfortunate that I was shy and introverted and couldn’t handle hanging out with my much louder and boisterous father. He was the one that imprinted an undying work ethic in me that has its own pros and cons. I started to try to work for him at his second pizzeria on Fordham Road in the Bronx at the ripe old age of 13 (I may have been 12) , he allowed me to put a freezer in front of his store and sell Italian Ice, he generously let me keep the profits from that summertime venture. I guess in a way to teach me the sweetness of earning your own money and developing a passion for being your own boss. Unfortunately when it came time for me to work directly for him behind the counter a couple years later, it proved too daunting for me ( at the age of 14) to get yelled at by my Dad in front of strangers. So I quit and started working at a pizza place near our home. He wasn’t happy but he respected that I wanted to still work and learn and he was impressed at how seriously I took the fact that I had a job. After he got sick during my sophomore year of H.S I went back to work in his latest pizzeria in Manhattan with my brother and continued there until we sold it after his passing. Around that time I started working at one of the busiest pizzerias in Westchester County , N.Y. and learned just as much as I could and improved my passion for the business. In 2003 I opened my first pizzeria with a partner in Wilton,CT and it wasn’t long before we had two other stores and eventually had joined the World Pizza Champions and started learning more about the industry I loved. I couldn’t be happier to say that each and every one of the team members taught me something and I hold all of them in the highest regard. I competed in New York , Atlantic City and Las Vegas , winning medals in the NY Pizza Games trials for fastest pizza and for largest dough stretch. In Las Vegas I was able to squeak out a win for Best Traditional Pizza in the Open Division. I even traveled with the team, but did not compete, to Salsomaggiore in 2006 and went as support to my teammates. After my partnership ended, I left the ownership side of the industry in 2009 and started working at various food related, fast casual companies in Manhattan (even one or two pizzerias) all the while learning and taking in different aspects of the industry. Finally in 2019 I decided to start a part time pizza catering company because I was at a party and they were disappointed that the guests had to leave the party to go outside to get the food because the pizza oven trailer could not fit in the backyard. So i looked for portable pizza ovens that I liked and could handle what i was looking to accomplish, designed a menu (much of which is based off of pies that we made at the pizza shops after hours that wasn’t on the menu) as well as a website and started doing what i loved, making pizza for people and watching the smile as they eat what i created. Full disclosure , the reason I initially started this business to compensate for the fact that I was trying to leave the food business behind and would have to go back to making entry level money , but deep down I still had something stirring “in the basement” some sense of unfinished business or something left unsaid or not done. By the end of 2020 I had started to get some local recognition and a little traction going into the next year. At the same time my family and I moved out of the Bronx to a small suburb of NYC called Pelham. It was a few months later that I noticed a small pizzeria and thought to myself “One more round John” . On a chance, I asked a realtor friend of mine to go and speak to the owner and ask if he was interested in selling and to my surprise he was but had not listed the place yet. The name I chose , Pizza Fenice, is significant to me because the word “fenice” is the Italian word for phoenix, a bird that rises from the ashes and well in some ways that’s how I feel getting back into the business. When writing the menu I took a lot of inspiration from anything that I was told was “too difficult” or “too time consuming” or the product “too expensive to use” even though a better finished product would have been the result. Some of the pizzas on my menu were either made after late nights and after hours gatherings with friends and coworkers and some were recipes that I entered in competitions and won awards with. After all the years I spent on the fringe of the industry not being in or out completely I realized that making pizza is what makes me happy ,happy to see other people enjoying what I created for them. The look on someone’s face when they bite into my food and you can tell they are enjoying the moment is a feeling of satisfaction for me. It may sound silly but i feel like I’m spreading a little happiness every day because let’s face it, You CANNOT be miserable when you eat a good slice of pizza , it’s the ultimate comfort food that can transport you from the land of stress and troubles to the mountain top of smiles and laughs and lets you forget about the day to day chaos , even if it’s for a few minutes – this is why I love what I do and I hope people can see and taste the emotion and effort myself and staff out into the work here. I finally feel like I came back home and am doing not only what I love but what I’m supposed to be doing.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Willingness , Persistence , Resilience.
Willingness to learn at all times , if you’re the smartest person in the room then you’re in the wrong room because you have nothing to gain or learn from being there . Also willingness to do some introspection and take stock of your qualities both good and bad – Reinforce the good , but acknowledge the bad and try to learn how to change them and use those lessons to grow.
Persistence, to know what you want to do and charge forward and let the chips fall where they may ( being honest with yourself plays a role here too, as you have to be able to accept the consequences if there are any). If you can be honest with yourself and persist with your desires and dreams , they become self fueling and self fulfilling .
Resilience- One of the best and most meaningful examples of resilience ( for me) comes from the movie Rocky. In the final moments of the fight between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed , Rocky has taken an unconscionable beating at the hands of the champion Creed who has knocked the contender down for what is seemingly the last time. Even as Rocky struggles to get up his corner is yelling at him to stay down, as the Creed pridefully raises his hands in victory , but Rocky does not stay down , he drags and pushes himself to his feet, rights and steadies himself and prepares to fight , Apollo turns and sees this ,just then Rocky waves him forward showing him he’s ready to continue , Apollo shakes his head in disbelief and looks dejected as he gave all he had and now realizes that he will win this fight but he cannot beat Rocky. To me this is a metaphor for life , because it will hit you mercilessly , knock you down and keep you down if you let it , but if you can take all that life throws as you and still move on, take all the hits and still get up and show up for yourself , show up for your friends and show up for your family , then you never will never truly lose because your resilience keeps you fighting and lets you persist and.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
Not sure I have enough space or you have enough time to describe what my parents did for me, even though they were taken from me early. When I was 16 my father had a heart attack and stroke and remained disabled, two years later ,after my 18th birthday, my mother succumbed to her most recent bout with metastatic breast cancer . In those short 16- 18 years.
They taught me the difference between right and wrong.
They taught me that ethnicity had nothing to do with someone being a good person or bad person.
They taught me that if you are in a position to help someone then you should help, even if it means going out of your way because you would want someone to do that for you.
They taught me about self-sacrifice and duty to the ones you love- my mother stayed in the hospital with my father and refused her cancer treatments so he would not be alone when he wakes up.
They taught me to have a strong work ethic – to respect the fact that you work to provide for yourself and your family so you respect your work as you would respect yourself and loved ones.
They taught me to love in bad times as well as good – watching them be cute with childish giddiness even in the face of what were dire situations just because of how much they loved each other and would persevere together ,showed me to value and enjoy and live in the moment so as not to let and gloom take over for good.
They taught me to be kind and compassionate and to not be afraid of failure or a challenge .
Over the years I have forgotten some if not all of these lessons at any given time, but I do eventually circle back to them because even though it’s been over 30years , I think about them everyday, their spirit lingers inside and will never leave me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pizzefenice.com
- Instagram: @pizzafenice
