Making Pizza from the Backyard to Brooklyn

It's one thing to set your sights high, and another to be willing dive into the deep end—but that's what Elm Avenue resident Paul Giannone did when he decided to open a pizza restaurant in Brooklyn.

"I always had a hunger to do something I loved," he said of his decades in corporate offices, working in a variety of IT positions. "Everyone always told me I should open a restaurant because I love to cook."

He went from cooking weekend get-togethers for eight or 10 friends to packing in hundreds every night at his Greenpoint Paulie Gee's — and how he did it is a story of commitment, passion and living up to the promise of "paying it forward."

Giannone's story picks up shortly after the terorist attacks of Sept. 11, when he was stuck in Texas on a business trip and unable to get back to his family. Vowing to never be in such a situation again, he decided he would work on building his own business, and not someone else's. The search began for the right kind of business, and by 2004, he knew it would a Napoetana-style pizzaria.

Only problem was, he didn't know much about cooking pizza. He and his sons scoured New York and New Jersey pizzarias; he tasted, tested and provided testimony on pizza blogs and fan sites; he interviewed and photographed and noted who did what and who made what how.

He became an encyclopedia on pizza—and he became a member of the pizza-makers fraternity.

Along the way, he and a neighbor spent evening hours converting a brick BBQ in his backyard into a classic domed, wood-fired pizza oven in the style of those in Naples. He had determined he didn't want to try and run a full restaurant, had no use for burger joints, and that he just needed to learn how to build a great pizza.

"I built it for the sole purpose of opening a restaurant," he said, of the oven.

Experiments began, there were dough recipes to work out, cheese blends to try, toppings to sort through. He was ready for his first real pizza on the night before Thanksgiving in 2007—just in time to share it with his son, Michael, who was home for the holiday from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"I was amazed—it was good, the first time," he said.

He began hosting weekend events for his fellow online pizza-thusiasts, inviting eight, 10 or a dozen out to sample as many as 10 different pizza recipes, until he formulated his menu (his secret for firing his oven? "Kiln-dried aspen from Estonia," he said. "Bought it at A&P."). 

"It got to be kind of a big deal to come out for the pizza," he said, and photos of his little dome oven popped up on websites and in blogs.

He also continued to visit pizza shops everywhere, including the Pizzaria Bianco in Phoenix, widely considered the best in the U.S., where he learned secrets from owner Chris Bianco.

"I thanked him for everything and he said, 'no, just pay it forward,'" Giannone said.

From there, he began searching for the right location, which proved to be Brooklyn's trendy Greenpoint neighborhood. The other task was to replicate his oven—which he ordered from a manufacturer in Naples and had painted reminiscent of his little backyard oven.

"I wanted people to feel that coming to the restaurant was like being invited to my home," Giannone said.

The restaurant opened in 2010, with ingedients that read in mouth-watering Italian, with pizzas made with fior di latte, pecorino Romano, sliced cremini mushrooms and guanciale, and names like "Arugula Shmoogula," "Grapeful Dead" and "The Triumphant Return of Mo Cheeks," with most also available as vegan choices. 

Patrons line up to wait—even on Tuesday nights, he'll find a crowd outside the doors, happily waiting to dine. The restaurant has been featured on the "Today" show, with Jane Pauley interviewing Giannone, and he was interviewed for a feature in the AARP magazine. 

And Giannone lives up to the promise he gave Blanco on that visit to Phoenix: he not only makes time to talk to others who, like himself, want to know how to make an outstanding pizza, but he also helps support other pizza restaurants like his by wearing T-shirts and hats promoting them.

His backyard oven "has been retired," serving now as a monument to his new career as entrepreneur and restaurateur.