The independent pizza industry relies on people who bet on themselves.
These four women, all different cities, different stages, different levels of certainty about whether they even want to keep doing this, sat down and said the things that need to be said.
Join Anna Crucitt (Mercurio’s), Giorgia Caporuscio (Don Antonio), Mary Ann Giannone (Paulie Gee’s), and Julia Molinari (Molinari’s) for this brutally honest chat about the pizza industry. (Plus, a bonus at the end!)
View the full Shop Talk episode here 👇
13 brutally honest things women in the pizza industry want you to know
01
You can open too early. And you’ll probably do it anyway.
Anna opened Mercurio’s at 22 with no restaurant experience. Her logic: get it established before kids and life get complicated. Three kids and three businesses later, she laughs at herself. The dream that you’ll build something first and then live your life is almost always backwards. The life and the business happen at the same time.
I really should have waited a few years or worked in other restaurants first. But I thought — if I open early, I’ll have it established by the time I have a family.
02
The hardest year might come before you even open.
Georgia almost didn’t take over Don Antonio. The year before she did was the worst of her life. She lost her grandmother — one of the people who shaped her most. She had to stop, slow down, and ask what she actually wanted. The decision to open wasn’t made from momentum. It was made from grief and clarity. Most people skip the clarity part.
That year I was really down. I lost one of my mentors, one of the loves of my life — my grandmother. That was the moment I decided to take over Don Antonio. To reshape it in my way.
03
Working with your spouse will be the best or the worst thing. There is no middle.
Mary and Paulie have been together 50 years. It works because they came in with decades of foundation and defined roles. Anna tried working with her husband. She couldn’t turn off boss mode. He didn’t love it. He doesn’t work there anymore. Georgia’s husband isn’t in the kitchen either. These aren’t failures. They’re honest assessments of what actually works.
I was not capable of switching — work-mind Anna to wife-mind Anna. So he doesn’t work with us anymore. It was just a different dynamic.
04
The invisible work is running your business. Nobody sees it. You still have to do it.
Mary held a full-time job for eight years so Paulie could open the shop. Then eight more years until the second location. She did payroll, HR, community relations, charity work. Julia runs all the marketing. Anna wore every hat. The person making pizza gets the recognition. The person keeping everything else from falling apart usually doesn’t.
I pretty much did everything besides work the pizza station. I was still working a full-time job so that he could quit his and we could open.
05
If it doesn’t break you, you come out the other side. But it will try to break you.
Mary has been at this 16 years. They’ve opened, closed, downsized, survived a pandemic. She’s not sunny about it. She’s honest. There have been a lot of ups and downs. But she has a philosophy: as long as nobody’s hurt, we’ll figure it out. That’s not toxic positivity. It’s a practiced, deliberate decision to keep perspective when the business is on fire.
If it doesn’t break you, you’re going to come out the other side. As long as nobody’s hurt, I say — you know what happened? We’ll figure it out.
06
You will always feel like you’re not doing enough. That feeling is not data.
Anna describes the FOMO that comes with watching other operators online: always feeling behind, not growing fast enough, not posting enough. Two years ago she made a conscious decision: her five-year goal was for nothing to change. Just stability, for her family. That feeling of not doing enough didn’t go away. But she stopped letting it make her decisions.
07
Choosing to stay the same size is a legitimate business strategy. It just doesn’t get talked about.
Every operator gets asked when they’re opening the next location. As Anna put it, it’s like being asked when you’re having your next kid. The pressure to grow is constant and mostly external. Staying small on purpose isn’t a failure of ambition. It’s a clarity that most operators never get to.
About two years ago I decided I have a five-year goal to have absolutely nothing changed, nothing better, nothing worse. Which is so interesting as an entrepreneur — we’re always looking for growth.
08
You can be invisible in your own business for years. Nobody will fix that for you.
Anna felt it. Mary felt it for years of invisible work. Georgia felt it every time she walked into the expo and people assumed she was there to eat the pizza, not make it. The pattern is so consistent it’s structural, not personal. But it still has to be named before it can change.
09
People will be surprised you make pizza. Yes, because you’re a woman. Say it anyway.
Georgia was the only woman in the room at Pizza Expo for years. People signed up for her class expecting her father to teach it and almost left when she showed up. They came around. That’s the whole story in miniature: shock, resistance, then respect. The only way it changes is if more women name it.
Every single rideshare I get into — what are you doing at the expo? Eating pizza. I’m like: I’m making the pizza. Oh, you make pizza? Yes. Absolutely because I’m a woman.
10
Your marketing company cannot tell your story. Only someone who knows it can.
Mary Ann tried bringing marketing companies in. It didn’t work. Julia runs Molinari’s social media herself — every video has the family ovens in the background, her parents are tagged. The operator who knows the brand and lives the vision is almost always the best person to tell the story. The challenge is finding time. The solution isn’t outsourcing to someone who doesn’t know you.
Whoever runs your social media should be someone who sees the vision of your restaurant, knows your brand, and wants to promote it in an authentic light.
11
Working with family is wonderful and maddening and you will never fully separate the two.
Julia creates friction with her parents sometimes. Mary Ann’s son Derek left at 18, swore never to return, now runs their Philadelphia location and teaches his parents things they didn’t know. Giorgia and her husband split the business 50/50 — back of house, front of house — because they decided how it would work before it became a problem. The families that make it work talked about it before the fight.
12
Your heart has to be in it. And your heart being in it is not enough.
Julia said it clearly: your heart has to be in pizza and quality. No one complains about too many quality pizzerias. But passion without systems, without pricing discipline, without honest assessment — passion alone doesn’t keep the doors open. The operators who last have both: the love that gets them through hard days, and the clear-eyed ruthlessness that actually runs a business.
As long as your heart’s in it and the quality is there, I think you’re bound for success. But your heart has to be in it.
13
The thing you keep coming back to — keep pondering it. It won’t happen today. It will happen.
Mary Ann had the idea for her book for 11 years. Giorgia built Women in Pizza because she was tired of being the only one in the room. Anna started making videos because she wanted pizza to feel universal. None of it happened on a timeline anyone planned. All of it happened because they kept doing the thing. If you keep coming back to something, that’s not a distraction. That’s the signal.
If there’s something you want to do, just keep pondering on it. It’s not going to happen today. But if you’re passionate about it — keep doing it and putting it out there.
What would you tell the version of you who just opened?
With this advice in mind, you can now have a brutally honest conversation with yourself. Use the prompts below to get a letter written to you, from you, to help guide you.
Three questions. A letter written back to you. Honest, personal, from someone who has been through it.