By Charlie Pogacar
Know this first: Salvatore Reina doesn’t recommend his path to anyone.
In 2008, as the U.S. economy was imploding, Reina borrowed money from his older brother, Gino, and bought Francesca Pizza & Pasta (then called Aldo’s) in Glen Rock, New Jersey. He renamed it after his Sicilian grandmother, but Reina himself had never made a pizza in his life. “It shouldn’t have worked out,” Reina says. “I learned on the fly, and it worked out for me—but that’s not a plan. That’s just believing in yourself and praying you figure it out.”
Reina can laugh about it 18 years later because of everything he’s achieved: He now co-owns two Francesca locations; five of his original seven team members still work for him; he added a Detroit-style virtual brand, Squared, in 2021, which grew one shop’s revenue by more than 15%; and his shops make more than $600,000 annually in school-lunch catering alone.
Reina might have started out as a man without a plan, but, above all else, he’s a man of the people. You could say he took the path less traveled—and that has made all the difference.
Demoted to Success
Reina grew up in Deer Park, New York, on Long Island. He watched his older brothers, Gino and Ginley, graduate high school, attend college and get office jobs. He followed in their footsteps, believing that’s just what people did, and landed a job in the insurance industry.
But on weekends, he continued a part-time gig as a server at a pizza shop, Papa Joe’s, where he’d worked since his teenage years. A theme emerged: He dreaded Mondays at the office but actually looked forward to working doubles at the pizza shop. Finally, fate intervened. Reina had been gunning for a promotion at the office. When his boss hired somebody else instead, he was in disbelief. “I really thought I was next in line,” Reina says. “I was like, ‘Man, I’m busting my [tail] here, and I’m still not the guy?’ That was the moment where I told myself, ‘All right, if I’m gonna do this, I have to do it for myself. I never want to feel this way again.’”
Reina bought Francesca on a tip from Gino, who lived in Glen Rock. If Reina was woefully unprepared to own a pizza shop, he knew enough to focus on the things he could control. He coached team members on low-hanging fruit: Be as nice as possible to customers and always make sure the restaurant is clean. He relied on donating to local organizations rather than traditional marketing—a philosophy he maintains to this day. “Even if it’s just a gift card for two pies, now 150 people at that fundraiser just heard your name,” he says. When a business opens in town, Reina drops off gift cards or lunch. To attract new businesses, he offers their first catering order for free.
For several years, Reina worked at the shop every day. He didn’t have much of a life outside of it, but he and his now-wife, Michelle—a former high school classmate—managed to reconnect during this period. “She’s my rock—nothing I’ve accomplished could have happened without her,” Reina says.
One of the reasons their relationship lasted—and blessed them with two daughters, Valentina, 11, and Nicolina, five—relates to a lesson Reina learned early on. A high school friend of his had passed away suddenly, and the young man’s father was a pizzeria owner who worked long hours. “He told me, ‘Don’t do what I did,’” Reina remembers. “‘Work your butt off now, but build something where you can be home for dinner.’” Reina accomplished this: Although he still pulls a weekly double in the shops, most of his days are spent strategizing how to grow the business.
It’s About People
One of Reina’s day-one employees was Adam Vuksanic (pictured above with Sal and Gino). Vuksanic always showed great culinary promise and briefly left Francesca to attend culinary school. Upon graduating, Vuksanic approached Reina about wanting to open a restaurant. “I said, ‘That’s cool, what are you thinking?’” Reina recalls. “And he was like, ‘No, I want to open another Francesca.’”
So Sal and Gino teamed up with Vuksanic on a second shop, which opened in Elmwood Park in 2016. It’s just 15 minutes down the road from the original Francesca, but in a densely packed area like Northern New Jersey—with its high concentration of pizza shops—it’s practically a world away. “When we opened Elmwood Park, we weren’t trying to reinvent anything,” Reina says. “We were trying to take what we already did extremely well and bring it to a new neighborhood. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it—just do it better.”
Ask Reina to name his proudest accomplishment as a pizza pro, and he doesn’t hesitate. “I’m not a big ‘we have the best pizza’ guy,” he says. “I think we make very good pizza, but, to me, we’ve been successful because of the people we have. [Vuksanic] worked for me when he was a kid—I used to joke that he was this little punk, but he cared, and he had a big heart. Now he co-owns the stores with me. Those things don’t happen unless you treat people like family.”
Reina shares two stories to illustrate Francesca’s culture—and how he finds great team members. The first: He was looking to hire a pizza chef. An experienced pizza maker came in for a four-hour trial run, and the first few pizzas he made were phenomenal. But, two hours into the trial run, Reina cut the man a check and sent him home.
“The guy was shocked,” Reina says. “And he goes, ‘I thought you just said I made really good pizza, faster than you’ve ever seen?’ And I said, ‘Yes, you did. But you were rude to one of my employees, and I don’t have time for that.’”
The second story: On a new employee’s first shift, everything went wrong. Later, she broke down in tears. Reina talked her off a ledge and told her to come back the next day. A team member questioned Reina: “You’re really bringing her back?” Reina’s response: “Yes, because she cares.”
The anecdotes illustrate Reina’s guiding principle: You can teach somebody to make a pizza. It’s harder to teach them to be kind. But there are other examples of Reina’s commitment to culture. No team member is allowed to work both Saturday and Sunday—he believes everyone deserves time off on weekends to spend with their families. The shop closes at 8 p.m. every night. He buys cakes for each employee on their birthday. And he provides opportunities for professional growth: Vuksanic is not the only team member who has become a partner; Jeff Lucca, hired as a manager, now owns equity in the company.
Virtual Brands and School Lunches
In late 2020—mid-pandemic—Vuksanic and Reina were spitballing about what a ghost kitchen would look like for them. The result was Squared, a virtual brand specializing in Detroit-style pizza, launched from their Elmwood Park location. Without investing in new ingredients or equipment, Squared grew the shop’s revenue by 15%. Vuksanic led a grassroots influencer campaign that helped Squared take off on Instagram and even sparked a sellout streak after one viral post. Though the business runs on DoorDash, Reina knew the margins made sense thanks to the lack of startup costs. (Click on the link below to learn more.)
Related: How Sal Reina Grew Revenue 15% by Adding a Ghost Kitchen
Francesca Lunch Box, a school-lunch program, has become even more lucrative. It started small—pizza days and pasta days at local schools—but grew as administrators sought alternatives to national foodservice contracts. Reina partnered with SchoolBitez, which aggregates orders, organizes labels and simplifies production so his team can prepare up to 500 meals each morning with just two or three employees clocking in early. His menu focuses on kid-friendly favorites made with real ingredients that are free of nuts, GMOs and high-fructose corn syrup.
For the 2025-to-2026 school year, the program has grown from six schools to 17—more than doubling its revenue. Reina built this part of the business the old-school way: mailing four-page packets to local schools and emailing more than 120 coordinators. Beyond revenue, the school-lunch program deepened community ties, introduced kids and parents to Francesca’s, and even benefited the schools through give-back funds.
For Reina, it’s a predictable—and highly profitable—morning business that doesn’t interfere with lunch or dinner service. “The school lunch program is something that maybe sounds complex—it might sound crazy—but it’s really not,” Reina says. “It’s like a catering order every single morning that you can predict—it’s fantastic revenue. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Reina has a way of making it all seem simple. But he credits his wife, his partners—Gino, Vuksanic and Lucca—and his informal business advisor and close friend, Jeff Louis, for guiding him along the way. It’s also undoubtedly the result of having leapt into the pizza business feet first—with no plan B in sight. Even if Reina wouldn’t recommend that approach to anybody else, it’s helped him learn the business inside and out through trial and error. After all, he could still be chained to a desk.
“When I think back to that day when I didn’t get the promotion, honestly, I’m grateful,” he says. “It pushed me to take a chance on myself. Without that moment, none of this happens. My life is completely different. So, in a weird way, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Charlie Pogacar is PMQ’s senior editor.
