By Charlie Pogacar

Giulia Carniato hails from three generations of pizza makers. Growing up in Treviso, Italy, Carniato fondly remembers her grandparents cooking pizzas for her as a child. Her father, Stefano, had also opened a pizzeria in 1986, some dozen years before she was born. Stefano scaled Piola Pizzeria into an 8-store brand across South Florida and the Houston metro area. 

It was almost by divine destiny, then, that Carniato would go on to open up her own shop, P.Pole, which is a Gen Z-rific spin on a classic pizzeria. The concept slings thin-crust, skateboard-shaped pies that can be customized from a menu of vegan-friendly ingredients, for example, and other things that might appeal to younger diners. P.Pole offers three different types of dough: standard thin crust, gluten-free cauliflower and chia seed dough—Carniato’s personal favorite. 

The menu at P.Pole is based on Carniato’s belief that her generation is looking for “healthier options and alternatives to [traditional pizza ingredients],” she said. “Sometimes I eat other pizza that is not digestible. Our dough is very thin and we take 72 hours to prepare it. Our goal is really to offer healthy food at a good cost.” 

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Some of the most the unique and popular toppings on the line at P.Pole include gorgonzola, ricotta, jalapeño and artichoke. There is also a menu of eight different stock pizzas that range from mostly traditional—the Meat P.Pole ($13) is topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, meatballs, ham and sweet sausage—to cutting edge: the Nutella P.Pole ($11) is a chia crust topped with nutella, fresh strawberries and powdered sugar. Pizzas start at just $9 and are baked to order in an electric oven that is able to pump out the thin-crust pizzas in two minutes and 15 seconds. 

P.Pole Pizza

“Our goal is to grow nationwide and even worldwide,” Carniato said. “I think we have a great opportunity to expand in places like airports, especially, because pizzas can be prepared quickly and efficiently and the set up costs are minimal since our electric ovens come at a fraction of the cost of a wood-fired oven. That’s the perfect formula for franchising, which is something we are already set up to do.

P.Pole has already grown to four locations. Each storefront is thoughtfully curated by Carniato, who holds a business degree in strategic design and management from the Parsons School of Design in New York City. The interior of each store emphasizes street art and skateboarding—both things that are popular in the hip and vibrant Wynwood neighborhood of Miami. These touches help underscore that P.Pole is, first and foremost, appealing to young diners in an authentic and scalable way. 

“A lot of quick-service chains are trying to cater to Gen Z now but with no one at the helm under the age of 40,” Carniato said. “I came up with this concept right before I started art school. My inspiration was for everyone to be able to create their own pizza texturally, like artwork. I wanted to reimagine pizza in a thoughtful and intentional way, as a form of expression, in a way that resonates with our generation and lifestyle.”

Pizzerias