By Charlie Pogacar
For years, Giovanni Labbate helped scale other pizza brands, including Billy Bricks. Those experiences gave him confidence he could run his own shop—something that had always been the plan.
So when it finally came time for him to open a pizzeria of his own, Labbate—a member of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team—knew it would be a new mentality, but he was plenty prepared. “I mean, it’s a scary situation, but I think, for me it was a little easier,” Labbate said on the latest episode of Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast. “So I think it was more of a ‘we have nothing to lose’ attitude.”
Tievoli Pizza Bar—“I love it” spelled backward—is the product of that thinking. Opened in Palatine, Illinois, in the Chicagoland area, in 2021, the restaurant has an impressive, elevated design and a complete—yet decidedly simple—menu. Everything, Labbate says, was engineered to be operationally sound first.
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That same philosophy carries over to Tievoli’s food truck, a glass-walled, design-heavy build that has become a major revenue driver. His wife, Adrianna, helped design both the brick-and-mortar shop as well as the pizza truck.
“We really designed something that’s like showstopping,” Labbate said. “So when we pull up, people are like, ‘Wow, this is something different.’”
The truck stays booked through the summer with weddings and private events, generating hundreds of thousands in annual sales and giving Tievoli a financial buffer many independent operators lack. When Labbate opened his first brick-and-mortar, he knew the truck alone could carry the rent if needed.
The Labbates run the business without partners, a deliberate choice shaped by earlier ventures that taught Giovanni the cost of divided vision. The family is deeply involved: one son manages the truck operation, another is beginning to take on social media and production work.
Now, Tievoli is on the verge of its second location, with longer-term plans that include multiple units and, eventually, franchising. But the growth will stay measured and deliberate, Labbate said, adding that he isn’t interested in building fast for the sake of building big. He’s interested in building something repeatable and successful. He already has.
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