Cut a deal with owner Carlo Lombardi, and Panzera’s Pizza, a 61-year-old shop in Columbus, Ohio, could be yours—for a cool $1.59 million.
Lombardi is ready to retire after working at the old-school family-run pizzeria since he was 17 and owning it since 1988. He took it over from his father, Fred Lombardi. Fred, in turn, bought the restaurant from founder Nick Panzera, who was once known around Columbus as something of a pizza-making child prodigy.
The listing on BizBuySell states that Panzera Pizza’s building is “strategically positioned at a traffic light on the corner of Third Avenue and Grandview Avenue.” It offers “amazing visibility and access and is surrounded by businesses, condos, apartments and housing.” The new owner “can use [the] Panzera Pizza name and recipes” or rebrand it as a different concept.
There is nothing artisanal about the menu; banana peppers are about as fancy as the toppings get. But Family Destinations Guide recently named Panzera’s one of “11 Hole-in-the-Wall Pizzerias in Ohio That Will Blow Your Mind.”
“This Grandview Heights treasure sits under a distinctive red awning that says ‘Good Pizza Happens Here,’” the article reads. “During summer evenings, the outdoor seating area becomes one of the happiest places in Columbus. Their pizza has that neighborhood Italian feel—like it’s made by someone’s grandmother who refuses to share the recipe. The crust achieves that perfect balance of crispy exterior and soft interior that pizza dreams are made of….The sauce has a sweetness that plays perfectly against the saltiness of the cheese and toppings.”
The pizzeria occupies a 1,290-square-foot building with a dough room, prep areas, two ovens and a patio parking lot.
And, along with the Ohio-style square-cut slices based on an old family recipe, it comes with an amusing and colorful history, according to CMH Gourmand.
Here’s how the story goes: As schoolboys, Nick Panzera and his brothers, who had emigrated as children from Italy with their parents, worked for several years at Tedeschi Bakery; when it closed, the boys took over the shop and turned it into Panzera’s Pizza. At the age of 13, Nick was already managing Panzera’s, which had one oven, and mixing all the dough by hand. At 15, he became the restaurant’s sole owner when his older brother moved away to California.Â
But Nick knew he couldn’t keep the business going on his own—at least not without some major upgrades. He needed more and better equipment to increase his production volume.
The problem was, he was just 15, and an adult needed to sign for the equipment—a second oven, a dough mixer, a slicer, a double-door refrigerator, and more—to the tune of $10,000. The salesman told Nick he was too young to sign a legal contract. Nick’s dad couldn’t speak or read English.
So Nick did what any enterprising teenager in his position would do: He forged his father’s signature.
At 21, Nick decided to switch careers from pizza man to policeman (his brief foray into criminality notwithstanding) and sold Panzera’s Pizza to employee/relative Fred Lombardi. And, of course, Fred passed the restaurant on to Carlo, and now the next chapter in this pizzeria’s illustrious history awaits a new author. Could that author be you?
