For 30 years, Chef Anthony Russo has provided communities with homemade New York-style pizza and Italian dishes inspired by his childhood.
Before Russo’s Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen became the franchise it is today, Anthony grew up in New Jersey learning how to cook family recipes that came from his parents’ home in Naples and Sicily.
In 1978, at the age of 12, his family moved to Galveston where they opened Russo’s Italian Restaurant. Anthony said he’s been working in the kitchen ever since.
“I grew up in the kitchen, cooking. After school that was kind of my homework, to learn how to cook Italian,” he said. “That’s what I did for 20 plus years in my parents’ restaurant”
After Anthony’s parents retired from the restaurant business in the mid-1980s, it opened a door for him to follow his dreams. In the 1990s, Anthony opened the franchise Anothony’s Pizzeria, which slowly evolved into Russo’s New York Pizzeria.
“That was my passion – I said, ‘this is what I want to do,’” he said. “I started offering franchises and kind of developed the system myself and then started granting people the franchise opportunity throughout Texas.”
Although Anthony’s original family restaurant in Galveston has closed, Russo’s continues to follow the same traditions and concepts started by his parents nearly 50 years ago.
“I still use the same cheese, the same sauce products, the same olive oil,” Anthony said. “For 30 plus years, I've been using them in our system.”
Every Russo’s location not only follows the same Russo family recipes, but also uses fresh ingredients imported from Italy and local markets. This includes making their sauce, pizza dough, and salad dressings from scratch.
“We use high quality fresh ingredients to make our pizzas, and that's what separates us from most of the pizza chains as we franchise our model,” Anthony said. “A lot of places don't do it anymore, so we want to keep the same family tradition.”
While classic pepperoni pizza is always the most popular, Russo’s offers a variety of different options and toppings for their pizza. Anthony said the Mulberry Pizza is their second-best seller on the menu, which is made with a blend of meats such as pepperoni, Italian sausage, fresh ground beef, and Canadian bacon.
One of the more unique pizzas, and his personal favorite, is the Burrata & Prosciutto pizza made with olive oil from Sicily, Wisconsin mozzarella, burrata cheese, and Prosciutto de Parma. Although pizza is their specialty, the restaurant offers various kinds of pasta, salads, sandwiches, as well as vegan and gluten free options.
“We make our dough with olive oil. We don’t use saturated fats; we don’t use seed oils in our kitchen,” Anthony said. “It's all Italian family recipes, and we've been doing it for 50-60 years when the recipes originated. It hasn’t changed.”
For Anthony, the franchise model provides an opportunity to expand the tradition of serving homemade meals in a warm and welcoming environment. “You find stuff like this back home in the New York and New Jersey area, it still exists – the mom-and-pop shops where they’re still making food from scratch,” he said.
Anthony said it also gives him the opportunity to train individuals who want to open a restaurant but don’t know where to start.
“We have the experience of 30 plus years,” he said. “We welcome them to the process, where they actually make food from scratch. It’s exciting because even if they don’t have cooking experience, we have them making a pizza in the next few days, which is pretty cool.”
Although Russo’s started in the Houston area, it has grown to include 56 locations in cities across Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona, and as well as international locations in Dubai and Doha.
Russo’s New York Pizzeria in Bridgeland operates as the restaurant’s corporate store, where Anthony said they enjoy giving back to the community and being involved in events at Cy-Ranch High School.
He said the franchise also works with the local non-profits and organizations, such as the Ronald McDonald House and MD Anderson.
“We like giving back to kids and working with the schools, and then just supporting the community with special events,” he said.
Looking to the future, Anthony said he hopes to continue expanding the franchise to other locations across Texas and the U.S. They recently opened a store in Magnolia and have three more opening in the Dallas area.
“We custom build our stores, we custom design our restaurants, and the size ranges from 1,200 square feet to the largest 3,500 square feet, so we have a business model that would work with several different budgets in mind,” Anthony said.
Russo’s continues to follow the same traditions and concepts started by his parents nearly 50 years ago.