Long Island chain The Pizzeria, known for treating its employees as internal customers, plans to open its seventh restaurant, this one on Main Street in Smithtown.
The Pizzeria’s new store will open as soon as late February, according to the Greater Long Island website, joining sister locations in Bay Shore, Lindenhurst, Islip, Bayport, Lake Grove and Babylon. The location will span 3,000 square feet and feature a full-service bar, seating for 75 guests, dine-in service and a slice counter.
The Smithtown location will add between 25 and 30 employees to The Pizzeria’s payroll. Currently the chain has a team of 170 employees, and keeping them happy is essential to the brand’s mission.
Related: Focus on creating employee satisfaction to retain a happy, motivated staff
According to Greater Long Island, The Pizzeria emphasizes both customer service and employee satisfaction. Its executive leadership includes a chief happiness officer, similar to a role played by Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream CEO Tom Sacco, as well as a performance coach who focuses on helping employees achieve personal and professional fulfillment.
“We’ve learned that investing in our team’s happiness leads to better experiences for our guests,” co-owner Cliff Weinstein told the website. “Our goal is to create a platform for growth. Whether employees stay with us long-term or use this as a stepping stone, we want to ensure they thrive.”
Weinstein said The Pizzeria takes a “hospitality approach to the whole business, and by hospitality, we mean starting with making our team as happy as humanly possible. If our 170 employees are happy, fulfilled and challenged, they’ll naturally create great experiences for our customers.”
The company’s chief happiness officer organizes team-building events and works with staff members “to help them find happiness—not just in their jobs but in life,” Weinstein added. “It’s about understanding what really matters to the individual, which changes how they think and operate,” he added.
Weinstein founded The Pizzeria with brothers Paul and Dan Saccoccio in 2020. They opened the Babylon location in April 2024. At that time, Weinstein, in an interview with Fire Island & Great South Bay News, said the restaurant would be “a place for the community to connect.” He added, “You’ll see families with strollers next to a group having a business meeting and kids getting pizza after school.”
You’ll also seeing employees finding opportunities for personal and professional growth. As an example, Greater Long Island reported that The Pizzeria helped a former counter worker—who was also attending law school—find prestigious clerkships that boosted their legal career. “We’re creating a platform for growth, whether that means growth within the company or stepping stones to other opportunities,” Weinstein said in the interview.”
