Back in Spring 2024, the owners of Lovers Pizzeria, a San Antonio pizza shop known for its hugely popular poblano pizza and a walk-up window for to-go orders, suddenly faced a problem: It was March 20, and their landlord wanted them out of the building by April 1.
The good news was, Dusty Dworak and Victoria Moreno were already planning to relocate to a bigger space anyway. They needed more room to accommodate their rapidly growing customer base. They just weren’t expecting to make the move quite so soon.
Now, since re-opening their restaurant on February 1, 2025, they have another problem: They keep running out of dough due to sky-high demand. Like, all the time. The lines are so long outside their new building, even a reviewer for the San Antonio Current recently got a tad impatient.
“A mere four months after relocating to its current Monte Vista digs, [the pizzeria’s] New York-style pies have accumulated the kind of cult following that has fans enduring long waits and early sellouts,” critic Ron Bechtol wrote.
In his May 23 review, Bechtol wrote about his own wait. One couple within earshot finally just gave up and walked away while another couple arrived at a split decision—he left while she stuck around. “I really want to try the poblano pizza,” she said.
Hoping to beat the lunch rush, Bechtol had shown up just before Lovers Pizzeria opened on a Friday. To no avail. “After snagging the last slot in the parking lot, I entered to find all tables occupied and a line horseshoeing along one side of the small dining room. Veteran Lovers lovers had come prepared with card games and diversions for the kids. I recognized this didn’t bode well.”
Bechtol gamely persevered, eventually placing his order and learning that he might have to wait for up to two hours. He went home, then returned at 5:50 p.m. to find a “sold out” sign posted on the side door. But his pizzas were ready and still warm.
“Was it all worth it? Upfront, let me state that I’m never doing this again,” Bechtol wrote, pointing out that he had “invested more than three-and-a-half hours in the experience. “However,” he added, “I can say my two pies were exceptional.”
In a year that’s seen many small indie operators closing their doors around the country (see one example below), Lovers Pizzeria is an uplifting success story. Dworak and Moreno have hurdled obstacles that would leave some operators exhausted and all out of hope, especially when their first choice for a new location didn’t pan out. After finally securing their current spot, they realized they would have to bid farewell to slices and offer only whole pies.
Related: Mom-and-Pop Pizzeria, Set to Close in a Few Months, Needs ‘Every Penny…to Help Us Pay Off Debts”
For reasons unexplained, they don’t take online or call-in orders—they don’t even have a website. (Maybe they’re simply too busy to build one.) Their 20-quart mixer “crapped out” one morning last month. “It was the mixer we used since day one, making 15 doughs a day, and it was the mixer we have been using to make 90 doughs a day,” the couple explained on Instagram. “It hit above its weight for a long time, but today was the day it died.”
Still, the customers keep coming—too many for the owners to handle some days, even though they’re open for just four days a week (Thursday through Sunday).
Dworak learned the pizza-making art at celebrated shops like Pizzeria Beddia in Philadelphia and Bufalina and Favorite Pizza in Austin, Texas, and also brought pizza to the menu at San Antonio’s now-defunct Go Fish Wine Bar. Moreno designed the restaurant’s look and feel, which includes an Instagrammable wall that declares, “Pizza Is for Lovers.”
As one Yelp Elite reviewer explained in a 5-star post on March 22, “The only downside to this place is waiting. We arrived at 3:15 today, stood in line for 20 minutes and [were] told that the pizzas would take 50 minutes. Totally worth it, though….The poblano pizza is one of the most flavorful, unique pizzas I have ever had. You can see them hand-tossing everything in the back—that’s why it takes longer than the chain pizza places. The amount of care and love they put into these pies [is] evident, though.”
More recently, another Elite Yelper wrote, “If you’re up for an adventure and some seriously good pizza, this spot is worth the wait—but plan ahead! We arrived 30 minutes before opening and were already halfway through a long line….They sold out just one hour after opening, so come early and come prepared. Despite the wait, we’ll absolutely be back—that vodka sauce alone is worth the trip.”
Writing for the Current, Bechtol said Lovers Pizzeria’s Margherita pie is “the standard by which any good pizzeria—fancy, wood-burning oven or not—is judged.” The restaurant “turns out a thin, suitably charred and robust, naturally leavened crust that manages to be both crisp and pleasantly chewy.”
As for the famous poblano pizza, “the flavor is bold without overwhelming the crust,” Bechtol wrote.
Bechtol might have been a little grumpy about the experience, but Dworak and Moreno have made it clear that quality will always come first.
Posting on Instagram a week after reopening Lovers Pizzeria this year, Dworak wrote, “We have doubled our dough amount, and we are still selling out. We felt so much love from y’all last week, and we are trying to keep up! Lovers Pizzeria is just Victoria and me and sometimes our moms, and that’s really it. It’s truly a family business, and we are trying to make the best pizzas possible for all you pizza lovers.”
