A longtime neighborhood favorite counts on loyal diners and restaurant tech to get through anything.
NY, NY
There’s no other dish that inspires loyalty quite like pizza, and Antonio Gomez has been in the biz of slinging and serving his thin crust classics to passionate New Yorkers for over 23 years.
His legendary dough may be perfected, but staying ahead of the curve in today’s restaurant industry is a recipe that calls for constant tinkering. Now with six restaurants under his belt, Antonio must balance customer loyalty, key partnerships and in-house delivery to stick around for another 23 years–and more.
It all started in 1999 with Gruppo, a tiny shop where Antonio could perfect the thinnest pizza the city had ever seen. “We loved pizza and wanted to do something new with the concept,” he says, “but we had no marketing or long term plan.” When word of mouth made his pizza an overnight sensation for the neighborhood, Antonio seized the opportunity to go bigger. For Antonio, that meant adding locations–but not in the way most restaurateurs would do it.
“The success of our first restaurant dictated our moves for the second,” Antonio explains. “Being a part of the community was important to us.”
At each new location, they served the same cult-favorite pizza with the same great service, but chose to give each place its own name. After Gruppo came Vezzo, Tappo, Brodo, and more; forming not a chain, but a collection of unique restaurants that got to know each neighborhood.
Diners took note, and welcomed Antonio as one of their own. “They all have the same menu,” he says, “but people get territorial over their local spot, saying it’s the best!” While Antonio’s restaurants took care to connect with each community, he knew he needed to secure another important relationship to help grow the business.
Antonio resisted joining an online delivery platform for years, wary of predatory models that gouged restaurants on commissions. But as the business grew, he looked for a way to serve his loyal customers while maintaining the high quality of service and food his restaurants were known for.
“With our internal delivery team, we’re able to protect our product, sustain our staff, and keep our customers safe,” he explains. “So many of these platforms make that impossible; they don’t allow for any autonomy.”
In 2019, the thin crust restaurants partnered with ChowNow to streamline and scale their online ordering the way they wanted–without the limiting parameters found on other delivery platforms. Today, they have over 400 customers using their unique app, and can run promotions, keep their customer data, and adjust operations on the fly. With a new takeout partner that both he and his diners could trust, it was time to see what the future held for Tappo and the other restaurants.
In the fall of 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, a kitchen fire broke out at Vezzo. With his entire business dependent on delivery and takeout, Antonio had to act fast.
“Using ChowNow, we moved all our delivery orders to our sister location, Tappo,” Antonio says. The in-house delivery team hurried over to the other shop, and before they knew it, they’d saved all their orders. “It was absolutely crucial for us,” he remembers.
When loyal customers called in asking how they could show their support, they were redirected to Tappo’s app ordering, powered by ChowNow. “It was such an easy solution for everyone,” says Rita Nesso, general manager. “This is a story that defines us as a company because we all came together: our team, customers, and ChowNow.”
Pulling through the kitchen fire, on top of the challenges wrought by the pandemic, underlined the far-reaching impact of Antonio’s careful decisions about who to work with, and how.
Nowadays, he says, “when it comes to delivery platforms, we saw an awareness that our customers didn’t have before.” Diners understand that how they order matters, and prefer to support local restaurants directly rather than through third-party marketplaces. “It’s so crucial to understand the difference between the other apps and ChowNow,” Antonio continues.
Antonio chose ChowNow because, as he puts it, “We don’t want to lose control of our business or the quality of our product. This gives us stability and lets us keep the slice of market share that’s ours.”
“ChowNow helps us remain optimistic,” adds Rita.
Even in a rapidly changing landscape for the restaurant business, Antonio’s plan is to stay on his toes and take things day by day, just like did when he opened his first location 23 years ago. Establishing multiple locations, strong customer loyalty, an independent in-house driver team, and a supportive online ordering partner are all powerful tools that he’s used to stay ahead of the curve.
The next steps are simple. “We’re going to keep doing what we do, and do it well,” Antonio says. “This is how we’re going to survive because that’s what people want to come back to.”
