“I meet John Arena way out in the northwest Valley. The word sprawling is used often to describe the outlying suburbs of Las Vegas, and nowhere does this word seem more appropriate than here, the neighborhood known as Centennial Hills. But between broad stripes of residential tracts empty and occupied, generic shopping centers and beige-gray desert, there’s something under construction. It’s the new Metro Pizza, at the corner of Cimarron Road and Sky Pointe Drive, set to open in early July,” according to Las Vegas Weekly.

“There are four Metro Pizza locations in Las Vegas already, but the fifth will be special. As Arena shows me around his pizzeria-to-be, he explains why this new restaurant is significant, in his ever-humble way. Any conversation with him, or with his cousin and partner Sam Facchini, begins with the pizza business and develops quickly, and warmly, into something more meaningful. It’s not unlike the way dough becomes more pliable when worked with care, or how that dough can become a meal for a family, or how that meal can become a foundation for everything else. It’s always more than pizza.”