By Rick Hynum
You might say Justin Pioppi comes from a family of “survivors.” His mother has fought—and beaten—three types of cancer in recent years. The Pioppis’ restaurant, Luigi’s Pizzeria, keeps thriving after nearly four-and-a-half decades in Revere, Massachusetts. And as for Justin himself? He’s a competitor on the new season of the CBS reality show titled—you guessed it—Survivor.
That’s season 48, to be specific, and it premieres on Wednesday, February 26, with a prize of $1 million at stake. Who actually wins is a secret that Justin can’t share with PMQ Pizza or anyone else, so you’ll have to tune in to watch the Massachusetts pizza man in action. But one thing’s for sure: He’ll be an easy contestant to root for, and not just for those of us in the pizza community. He’s the fella with the long, flowing hair, winning smile and amiable, upbeat, never-met-a-stranger demeanor.
And, most importantly, he’s doing it all for his mom.
“I wanted to win the money for her,” Justin told PMQ Pizza in a recent interview. “Just give her the million-dollar check and be, like, ‘You don’t have to go to work tomorrow. You don’t have to go to work ever again. You use this money, and you figure out whatever you want to do with it and enjoy the rest of your life the best that you can.’ That was my motivation.”
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A Crazy Life in Pizza
For a pizza guy, Justin’s life story is a familiar one—up to a point. His parents, Frank and Candace Pioppi, started dating in their early 20s. Frank wanted to start his own pizza shop, while Candace planned to practice law. “My mom, who was in her last semester of college, was, like, ‘I’ll do this for a year or two. Then I’ll go back to school, finish, and go to law school,’” Justin recalled. “Her family were all lawyers and academics. But she just never went back. So, 44 years later, we’re still here.”
They named Luigi’s Pizzeria for Frank’s uncle, also a pizzaiolo. “He taught my dad all the recipes and everything,” Justin said. “He told him way back then: ‘Use peanut oil! Don’t use soybean oil or canola oil in your dough. Peanut oil will give you a particular bake, and it’ll help in the oven.’ So in his honor, my dad named our place Luigi’s.”
Justin, of course, grew up in the restaurant—he even started reading PMQ Pizza as a child, since his parents are longtime subscribers. “Once I was able to walk and talk, I’d help my dad and run orders out. Whatever I could do, I always had my hand in it. My friends would have movie nights and family parties, and we were always going in to work. That was my life, so I just got used to it. When people ask, ‘Oh, how does it feel to have a restaurant?’ I’m just, like, ‘I don’t know anything else.’ But it’s always been a good source of income for us. And it’s allowed me to do so many cool things…and connect with so many awesome people.”
The pizza life did put a cramp in Justin’s love life, however. “I’ve brought dates here. That wasn’t the best idea. You know, you meet a girl, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ll show you how to make pizza.’ But when you’re working weekends and nights and you don’t get back to your phone as often as you should, things tend to go south. It’s just been a crazy life experience, and I don’t think you could understand how it is unless you’re in the industry yourself.”
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One Challenge After Another
Life got even crazier—and tougher—when Candace was diagnosed with breast cancer while Justin was still in high school. “That’s when I took on a more advanced role,” Justin said. “I’d go in [to Luigi’s] during the mornings before school, go to the supply store and get ingredients for the restaurant, and help with prep. Then I’d head to school and come back and do whatever I could for the family.”
Candace eventually beat breast cancer, freeing Justin up to attend Yale University. As a transfer student majoring in political science, he was one of 26 selected that year out of a pool of around 3,500, and a promising career lay ahead. He became the youngest legislative intern ever hired at the Massachusetts State House, the seat of Massachusetts’ legislature.
“I was going to go into politics or some sort of legislative capacity, whether it be as an aide or policy writer or a lobbying career,” Justin said. “But then my mother got sick again.”
This time Candace faced a battle with skin cancer. Justin was wrapping up his last year at Yale, and his mom kept the diagnosis a secret from him until he’d taken his final exams. “She knew if she told me the news, I was gonna just rush back home and do whatever I could to help her,” he recounted. “That’s the kind of person she is. She’s very selfless. She puts her family ahead of anything else, even her own health.”
Job offers already awaited Justin, but he tabled them. “I had a lot of great opportunities, but I’m, like, ‘I wouldn’t have these opportunities without Luigi’s. So let me go back, help you guys get a handle on things, and then go from there.’”
Candace prevailed over cancer again—just in time for the pandemic to wreak its havoc. But her financial smarts helped the family’s pizzeria survive that crisis too. “We’re fortunate enough to own the building,” Justin said. “That was something my mom wanted to do a long time ago, and we were able to keep our doors open, despite it being so challenging. Then, once we were getting back to normalcy, my mom got diagnosed with leukemia.”
It seemed to be one challenge after another for the Pioppis and their pizzeria. So Justin decided that was where he was needed most—politics could wait. “This has always been our main livelihood, for not only my family, but all our employees, families, plus our customers and our friends. So I said, let’s just focus on growing Luigi’s and helping the family in their time of need.”
How Survivor Is Like Opening a Restaurant
Candace is now officially cancer-free again, but the disease has weakened her considerably. She isn’t supposed to work, although Justin said it’s hard to keep her out of the restaurant that she and her husband built from scratch so many decades ago.
One constant in the family’s life, though, has been Survivor. Justin and his parents have been watching it since he was five years old. “I just remember my mother was captivated by it,” Justin said. “You’d see all these people running around in the middle of Borneo—they’re half naked, chasing down rats and eating them. And I was, like, ‘I don’t know what the hell that is, but it looks pretty cool. Although I don’t eat any meat, so maybe I’ll skip the rat thing.’”
Justin knew he wanted to compete on the series. With his mom on the mend again, he saw season 48 as his big chance. Getting cast, he said, “is a multi-step process with different screenings, I would call them. If you pass one, you’re on to the next one. Honestly, it’s like opening a restaurant. You have to get the permits, find a spot to open in, buy all the equipment, develop the recipes, and then, finally, you turn your ovens on, and you open the door. But you still have to perform. If you don’t put out a good product, if you don’t treat your customers right, if you don’t have great employees and good training practices in place, you’re not gonna do well.”
When he finally got the nod via a phone call from the series’ producers, Justin checked with his buddies to make sure they weren’t pulling a prank. “And when they all said no, I was, like, this might be a real thing that could happen.”
The Perfect Survivor Training Ground
A pizza shop can’t survive 44 years without the support of the community. And Luigi’s Pizzeria gives back, supporting virtually any local cause that’s worthy. And every Monday is 50% off night to ensure that anyone can afford to eat there. “We don’t make a ton of money that night,” Justin said. “But it’s not a big deal because we see kids coming after school who are on strict budgets or allowances. They come in, and they can get a whole pizza for $8. Low-income or working-class families can feed their whole family for under $20. People look forward to Monday night….They’re always like, ‘Oh, I know we’re getting Luigi’s pizza that night.’ It’s an awesome thing to see.”
In other words, Luigi’s is a neighborhood pizza joint in the best sense of the term, owned and operated by salt-of-the-earth folks who love what they’re doing. But it also proved a solid training ground for Justin’s Survivor adventure.
Justin has never belonged to a gym, he said, but he’s been toting 50-pound bags of flour and huge jugs of olive oil for years. Every day in a pizzeria is a cardio work-out, he noted. It’s also taught him self-discipline, patience, perseverance, people skills and how to be ready for just about anything—including the inevitable drama and infighting of a typical restaurant operation. Which is not altogether different from, well, a reality TV show.
“You never know who won’t come in because they have a [cold] or who’s fighting with their boyfriend on the weekends,” he said. “Or what happened between the dishwasher and the delivery driver. You try to sit back and let things happen naturally and step in when you need to.”
But Justin is quick to praise his restaurant’s team members. If they didn’t already do their jobs so well, his stint on Survivor would have been out of the question. “We have great employees here,” he said. “They’ve seen me grow up, literally. We’ve had people working here for 20 or 30 years. They’ll deliver for us. So I trust them. They wouldn’t be here if that weren’t the case.”
Meanwhile, Justin’s father and beloved aunts, Giuseppina Ruisi Gaglione and Karen Gaglione, also keep things running smoothly in his absence. Even so, Pioppi runs the show, looking after guests and solving problems with tact and skill. “If things aren’t to my liking, if I see a quality control issue, a delivery issue, a customer that’s unhappy, I will step in and say, ‘Hey, I know you’re unhappy with what’s going on. Let’s make this right. Let’s come to a solution that works for all of us.’ And when you’re working on a Friday night and one of the ovens goes down or you’re short on lettuce for a salad, you’ve got to improvise on the spot. So I think that mindset…goes a long way in a game like Survivor.”
You’ll have to watch on Wednesday nights to learn how Justin fared on the show. Regardless, business is going to jump at Luigi’s. In fact, the impact is already being felt, Justin said, as the word about the new Survivor season spreads. “It’s been really, really cool. We’ve had people, familiar and new faces, who have come in—people who are huge Survivor fans. They want to shake my hand and wish me good luck. I’ll be coming back from Restaurant Depot, and I’ve just unloaded 600 pounds of supplies and I’m exhausted. But I’ll hear, ‘Hey, someone’s here to see you. They just drove up from Connecticut or down from Maine.’”
“We’re going to have [the show] on here every Wednesday night,” Justin added. “We have one TV, and it’s usually reserved for the Celtics and the Bruins and the Red Sox. But now Wednesday will be Survivor night at Luigi’s.”
