Tutta Bella’s pizzeria finds success with high-quality ingredients, authentic pizza and a few basic principles
Marc Stiles Staff Writer-Puget Sound Business Journal
People told Joe Fugere he was nuts for wanting to open a pizzeria.
Another pizza joint in Seattle? In Columbia City? Forget about it, said friends and advisers who knew that the pizza market was overly saturated and thought Columbia City was too rough.
Nine years later, Fugere’s Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria, which helped lead the renaissance of Columbia City, has gross annual revenues of more than $10.3 million, up from $8.4 million three years ago. And Fugere is preparing to open his company’s fifth restaurant, a 300-seat location at Crossroads mall in Bellevue.
To understand how Fugere and his 180 employees have succeeded, you’ve got to know some things. They seem random, but together they help tell the story of the company that strives to do right by its employees, customers and vendors, while offering unique, authentic fare in an inviting environment.
Tutta Bella does not serve a pepperoni pie. The company was the first in the Northwest that an international trade group certified as a true Neapolitan pizzeria. And Tutta Bella offers hourly employees paid time off and health insurance benefits if they work more than 20 hours a week.
Fugere (pronounced Foo-jair) and his staff endeavor to welcome everyone who comes through the door, whether the person is an actual customer, a homeless person who wants to use the restroom, or a cold-calling salesperson peddling life insurance. Fugere will sit down with sales people, serve them a free pizza and listen to their spiel.
“This is how I built my business,” which is “not a chain of restaurants (but) a family of pizzerias,” said Fugere, whose success has drawn praise from President Barack Obama.
It started about 10 years ago when Fugere was looking for something to do after leaving Starbucks. He knew he wanted to open “a meaningful business,” one that would last 100 years or more. But he was unsure what that meant, other than somehow combining his passion for food, architecture, nonprofits and community.
Fugere knew the doubters were right: Pizza is overdone. But authentic pizza was different.
Fugere had learned that from his grandmother, Caroline Costanza, the daughter of Italian immigrants who came to Seattle 105 years ago and settled on Beacon Hill. She used to tell her grandchildren, “Someday, you guys will try real Italian pizza,’” said Fugere.
That got him thinking, and while doing research he discovered Verace Pizza Napoletana, an international nonprofit that promotes the art of Neapolitan pizza making. The Italian government made the group a legal entity that certifies pizzerias.
This led Fugere to Naples to learn the craft of making the thin-crust pizzas in wood-fired ovens. Fugere’s teacher spoke no English, and Fugere spoke no Italian. It wasn’t a problem. The instructor grabbed the student’s hands and pushed them into the dough, signaling this is how you do it.
Fugere also learned that you could build a business that would last 100 years.
“Seriously, I was in pizzerias that opened in 1889,” he said, recalling his first bite of pizza there. “It’s hard to describe, but it was an aha moment.” His grandmother had been right — there is nothing like real Italian pizza.
Fugere returned to Seattle. He went on to open four restaurants in five years and emerge on the national scene.
A Massachusetts-based nonprofit, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, twice named Tutta Bella one of the 100 fastest-growing inner-city companies in the country. And Tutta Bella has delivered pizzas to Obama aboard Air Force One at Paine Field in Everett. That was after Obama welcomed Fugere at the White House and publicly recognized him as he signed the 2010 Small Business Lending Act.
It’s the Friday lunch rush as Fugere gives a tour of the open kitchen in Columbia City. Heat rolls out of the oven as Executive Chef Brian Gojdics bakes a pizza by holding it over coals on a pizza peel, a disc at the end of a long stick.
“Everything is made from scratch,” Fugere said, pointing to the stack of cans of Tutta Bella private-label sauce made from Italian-grown tomatoes and talking about using a special flour, also from Italy
Tutta Bella locations—Columbia City, Wallingford (Stone Way), South Lake Union (Westlake) and Issaquah— have a new menu.
Building on the popularity of their thin-crust wood-fired pizza, the new southern Italian menu
Media Contacts: Lori Randall
Randall PR / (206) 402-4328
