By Tracy Morin
Editor’s note: PMQ Pizza’s recent interview with Paul and Mary Ann Giannone about their storied career and new book, Pizza From the Heart, will be presented in a three-part digital exclusive. Framed as an oral history of Paulie Gee’s, this is part 1. Click here to read part 2 and click here to read part 3.
When many people are counting down the years to retirement, Paul Giannone, better known as Paulie Gee, was just getting started—in pizza, at least. But little did he know that opening his now-iconic pizzeria, Paulie Gee’s, in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, in 2010 wouldn’t only change his life as a 56-year-old fleeing the corporate world. It would change the lives of numerous aspiring business owners, both inside and outside the pizza business—and the greater industry itself.
Except that Paulie Gee doesn’t call it the pizza business; he calls it the pizza community. Whether soliciting tips from Chris Bianco before opening his first restaurant to enabling the (legal) birthplace of Mike’s Hot Honey, Paulie has taken advantage of and paid forward the collaborative spirit that pizza fosters.
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Now he’s celebrating his serendipitous journey through a cookbook co-authored with his wife of 45 years, Mary Ann Giannone (and the help of James Beard-nominated food writer Sarah Zorn), fittingly called Pizza From the Heart. Described as “a love story between Paulie, Mary Ann and pizza,” the cookbook features more than 100 recipes, including pizzas like the famous Hellboy, the Mo Cheeks and the In Ricotta da Vegan. There are also recipes from the Giannones’ home kitchen (such as their famous vegetarian French onion soup and Paulie’s signature Penne a la Jack Daniels), plus the couple’s hard-won restaurant wisdom and more.
Paulie and Mary Ann will host a Q&A and book signing at the original Paulie Gee’s in Brooklyn on May 3. You can also watch for their upcoming events in Chicago on May 20 and in mid-September in San Diego, at Tribute Pizza. Meanwhile, the couple recently sat down with PMQ Pizza to discuss their trajectory in pizza—an unusual journey that, in hindsight, we couldn’t imagine any other way.
Part 1: Seeds of Change
PMQ: Tell us about your journeys in the food business.
Mary Ann Giannone: We had never been in the food business before we opened the restaurant in March of 2010—we had many other jobs, careers. I was in the corporate world, working in nonprofit and education. My husband was in the corporate world and also worked for the Port Authority New York and New Jersey, way back when.
We decided, after four years of living in Brooklyn, after we got married, to buy a house in New Jersey. Paulie always loved to cook. He’s a great cook. He’s not professionally trained. He didn’t go to culinary school. He didn’t go to Italy to learn how to make pizza. He just taught himself to make pizza, because he had this brilliant idea to open a pizza shop. And that’s kind of how it all started.
It wasn’t that that was really ever part of the plan—until we were in our 50s, because we were so involved with our sons, paying bills, our jobs and whatever. But we entertained a lot. We always entertained. And Paulie would do all the cooking. I would do all the cleaning up. We would have parties all the time, sometimes for 50 people at Christmastime. People kept saying, over the years, “Paulie, you should open something.”
PMQ: Why did you choose pizza?
Mary Ann: I guess he felt like pizza would be something easier to implement—not as many ingredients, and you don’t need all these chefs, sous chefs and all this kind of stuff. So that was, I think, why a pizzeria came to the forefront. But also because we grew up in New York, and we grew up with pizza. That’s what I had every Friday night, growing up as a kid. When I went to school, at lunch time we were allowed to go out, and I would go to the local bakery and buy pizza. That’s what we grew up on. We both love it, and he decided to build an oven in the backyard. I was still working full-time, and he built the oven in 2007.
Paulie Gee: Building the oven was not a hobby—it was to prove to myself that I could do this. I got the idea of maybe opening up a pizzeria. I was emboldened by the fact that pizza was simple, as Mrs. Gee was saying, and that allowed me to take that chance. But up until then, I really never made pizza.
We had gotten a lot of good business advice from being independent, multilevel marketeers, which we did in the mid-’90s. We learned about speaking things into existence and making commitments, believing in yourself, and I applied all of those things when I decided that I had to do something other than what I was doing in the corporate world. I was an IT consultant who wasn’t really wired for that career, but I struggled with it since I had bills to pay. Eventually, I took all of the things that we learned and brought this thing into existence. Long story, very short.
PMQ: What was that transition like?
Mary Ann: In order for him to do this, he quit his job—he always had a much better salary than I did, but he really hated what he did. It was in the corporate world for, what, 30, 35 years. I always knew he hated it, but you have bills to pay. And I saw such a difference in him when we did open, because he’s so creative, and I don’t think that was happening in the corporate world for him. So it kind of worked out well for both of us.
I initially was not in the business full-time, because I was still working a full-time job. My youngest son was still in college, so I needed the benefits for him. And actually I worked a part-time job the first year we opened—I helped with the business. That was 2010. When I look back at that, I’m like, “Wow, that was a lot.” But if it’s your business, you have to do what it takes. You don’t always have the money in the beginning, and we didn’t have people to help us, really, with the administration of things. So I had to jump in and fill a lot of voids.
Probably in 2018 was when I finally quit my full-time job, when we opened our slice shop, our second location in Brooklyn. It was almost three years under construction, and I was just waiting for that time that I knew we were going to open, so that I would be able to transition and quit my job. I tell people I quit my job on a Friday, and we had the soft opening for the slice shop on Sunday. And I don’t know what I thought I would be doing with my extra time, but I’ve never had any! On Saturday, I was in the slice shop with our son, putting tables and chairs together. It’s just the nature of the beast.
But I also say, I worked in different careers, and I worked for a lot of people I either didn’t like, or there were responsibilities that I was in charge of, and I had to do them even though I didn’t like them. And I remember hating sitting down for my evaluation, because sometimes I wasn’t happy with it. I don’t miss all those things. It’s very different when you work for yourself—we’re not punching a clock. We make our own schedule, but in this type of world, especially hospitality, there’s always something going on.
Paulie: But at the same time, it’s very liberating. I never owned my own business before, and I look back at how my mind and my heart worked when I had a boss, and how it is now. I make all the decisions—I don’t have to try to do something to please a boss or reconcile my vision with his. Probably most people perform best in that capacity. But we make compromises. We trade our time for other people’s money. And now that I had the courage to do this, I think we both feel that it’s a much better life.
Before we opened up, I spoke with a lot of people who were doing what I wanted to do. I spoke to pizzeria owners. First of all, speaking with those people and using them as an example gave me the belief that I could accomplish it. It’s very important, if you’re setting out to do something, that you believe that, when all is said and done, it’s something you can achieve. If you don’t feel that way, you’re not going to put the effort out to do it—because you’re invariably going to run into obstacles, and you’re not going to fight through or solve those problems if you don’t think in the long run that you’re going to do it.
PMQ: How did you prepare yourself for opening a pizzeria?
Paulie: I got motivated, and I got to believe in myself from people like Mark Iacono, who owns Lucali, and Mathieu Palombino, who owns Motorino. One other person I heard great things about was Chris Bianco, and I always wanted to go to his place. It turned out we were in Colorado in May of 2009, and we were going to go to Las Vegas afterwards. I realized that, while everybody went to Las Vegas on Thursday morning, we could go fly to Phoenix, go to Pizzeria Bianco, hopefully get to meet with Chris, and then move on to Las Vegas that night, which is what we did. And he found some time to talk to my son and me. It was just a wonderful experience—a life-changing experience.
I spoke with him about what I wanted to do, and he validated a lot of ideas that I had and a lot of the ways that I like to operate. Because, through all of this, I found that I’m not following a blueprint or doing something cookie-cutter. I’m just doing things in a way that I’m most comfortable, right? So when I spoke with him and asked, “What kind of tomatoes do you use?” he said, “Taste the tomatoes and use the ones that you like.” And that was great advice, because I really have applied that with everything that I offer people.
The other thing that he said, and this is very important, was when I asked whether I should make my own fresh mozzarella or not. I had been doing pizza tastings at that point for almost two years, and I did make my own fresh mozzarella, but I wanted to know if that’s a wise thing to do, or was it important in a pizzeria. He said to me, “Look, Paulie, I make my own fresh mozzarella here, but the only reason I do that is because there’s nobody in all of Phoenix that makes good fresh mozzarella. If I were you and you’re opening up a pizzeria in Brooklyn, there are 100 guys you know who make great fresh mozzarella that you could go to, and you should support them. They’re the experts at that. Support them, and in return, they’ll support you. You build community.”
In the second installment of this exclusive oral history, Paul and Mary Ann Giannone talk about the early days of Paulie Gee’s, their role in the founding of Mike’s Hot Honey, and mentoring pizza makers who have gone on to great success in the pizza community.
Join the Pizza from the Heart Q&A and book signing at the original Paulie Gee’s in Brooklyn on May 3. Watch for their upcoming events in Chicago on May 20 and in mid-September in San Diego, at Tribute Pizza. Learn more on Paulie Gee’s Instagram page.
