By Charlie Pogacar
About 15 years ago, three Turkish cousins visited Pizzeria Da Michele in Naples, Italy. The experience sent them down a rabbit hole they haven’t yet escaped—but that’s a happy thing in this case. The trio owns six—soon to be seven—Cugino Forno pizzerias, the first of which was opened in Greensboro, North Carolina in 2016.
The Neapolitan-inspired concept has grown steadily since 2016, having opened its first six locations between 2016-2022—all without franchising or outside investors. As the brand adjusted to new COVID-induced realities, it hit the pause button on growth to get its house in order.
“There’s a Turkish saying that essentially translates to: Don’t bite off so much that you choke,” said Joseph Ozbey, one of the brand’s three co-founders and co-owners. “We paused growth because we wanted to make sure staff was trained up, and everybody was happy. We didn’t want to overgrow ourselves.”
Related: He Helped Other Pizza Brands Scale—Now He’s Growing His Own
This year, it will open its seventh location in Greenville, South Carolina, marking its first expansion in nearly four years. The brand’s growth model is unique—its a hybrid of sorts. While it does not franchise, it offers its seasoned managers an intriguing deal: Go open your own location, and you will take home a manager’s salary and 25% of the profits.
Sometimes Ozbey and his cousins, Yilmaz and Adam Ozbey, ask, “How did this all happen?” All they know is that they never take a day for granted.
Turkish Roots
Ozbey and his cousins grew up in Gaziantep, a city of over 2 million people in southeastern Turkey known for its food culture. In fact, it’s recognized by UNESCO as one of the world’s gastronomic cities.
“They make, like, 50 dishes there with eggplant alone,” Ozbey said. “Food is just part of who we are.”
He moved to the U.S. in 2009 with no intention of opening a restaurant. His original plan was simple: learn English, return to Turkey and work in importing and exporting. Instead, he and his cousins bounced between different businesses—furniture, carpets—before the trip to Italy changed everything.
Italy, Ozbey says, feels like his third home. He’s visited 30 to 40 times, sometimes twice in a year. On one of those trips, the cousins found themselves in Naples at Pizzeria Da Michele, the famously minimalist pizza institution.
“They only had two pizzas—Margherita and Marinara,” Ozbey said. “That’s it. We fell in love with the simplicity.”
The cousins ate there for lunch. Then they went back for dinner. Eventually, Ozbey stayed behind in Naples while his cousins returned to the U.S. For nearly eight months, he worked in Italian restaurants, learning the trade—washing dishes, cleaning floors, studying technique and attempting to understand how Neapolitan pizza actually functions day to day.
“That’s when I really learned how everything was done,” he said.
Road Trip
When Ozbey returned to the U.S. in 2016, the cousins began searching for a location. What followed was a relentless road trip across the Southeast—Asheville, Greenville, Wilmington, the coast, the mountains. Ozbey remembers it vividly.
“I had a black Toyota Camry—2010 model,” he said. “I put over 20,000 miles on it in four or five months.” So many miles that a mechanic became puzzled when he returned for an oil change just a month or two after getting one. “He couldn’t believe how many miles I’d driven in that time,” Ozbey added.
Eventually, they landed at Revolution Mill in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the time, the area was far from the bustling destination it is today.
“The apartments weren’t open, and the offices were maybe half full,” Ozbey recalled. “One Friday night, we were setting up tables, and it was dark. Nobody was around. I looked at my cousin and said, ‘What the hell did we get ourselves into?’”
They opened anyway, and people showed up. There was no magical wand, but Ozbey credits the earned media they received as three cousins with a great story—local television stations featured Cugino Forno several times, and it helped spread the word.
The pizza itself is not true Neapolitan, but rather an American adaptation of it. Pies are huge—customers get bang for their buck—and they are stiffer and more crunchy than what the cousins first ate in Naples. That makes the pizza better as a to-go item—a big portion of Cugino Forno’s business—and more familiar to the American palate.
Growth From Within
Success came early and often. The brothers opened two more locations and quickly identified a new problem they would face: Three owners can run one, two and maybe three locations hands-on. Beyond that, something would have to change.
“You can’t be everywhere all the time,” Ozbey said. “Once you get past three locations, you need people you trust.”
Rather than turn to franchising or outside capital, Cugino Forno chose a different solution: identify strong managers internally, prepare them to lead, and send them out to open new locations of their own—without requiring any personal investment.
When the company opens a new store, it places a longtime employee in charge, pays them a salary and shares profits. “They don’t invest a single dollar,” Ozbey said. “These are people we already know. We’ve worked with them for three, four, five years. We know they’re willing to work five or six days a week. We know they care.”
The structure solves multiple problems at once. Managers gain meaningful upside and long-term opportunity without taking on debt. The company retains operational control and brand standards. And team members see a path to their own future prosperity—for that reason, the model has become a powerful cultural tool.
“When our team sees that we’ve already done this three times—and now we’re doing it a fourth—they know their turn can come,” Ozbey said. “It gives them hope for their future.”
That sense of possibility, he added, changes how people show up to work.
The Future
Ask Ozbey where he wants the brand to be in five or ten years, and he won’t talk about 30 or 50 locations. There are no true growth goals at all, in fact.
“For us, the most important thing is quality,” he said. “We want people to say, ‘They’re still good.’ Not, ‘They used to be good.’”
If the right location comes along—and the right internal leader is ready—they’ll grow again. If not, they won’t force it.
“Like I said, we want to bite what we can chew,” Ozbey said. “We have families. We have kids. We want lives too.”
