By Charlie Pogacar
Erica D’Arcangelo grew up surrounded by pizza. Her grandfather, an Italian immigrant and former coal miner, founded D’Arc’s Pizza in Windber, Pennsylvania, to give his family a future beyond the mines.
Now, decades later, D’Arcangelo is bringing national attention to that same small-town pizzeria through social media content, a growing collection of books and her podcast, Pizza Story. Lately, her content has moved beyond her family’s shop and begun to showcase her renewed love affair with pizza industry. The conversations she has on her podcast flow seamlessly, at least partially because pizza sauce runs in her blood.
“I was born into pizza,” D’Arcangelo said on the latest episode of Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast. “My first memories are sitting on the floor of the pizzeria, playing with my toys, eating a slice of pizza—because both my parents worked there, and my grandparents worked there.”
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D’Arcangelo went on to describe how her career as a marketeter—she has owned her own agency since 2013—had begun to feel a bit stale by 2018. Around that time, she began helping her father refine the D’Arc’s Pizza website and use her marketing mind to build out its social media channels. Sales quadrupled within two years, and D’Arcangelo’s love for marketing was rekindled.
Coal Miner’s (Grand)daughter
D’Arcangelo’s grandfather, Pietro, is at the heart of her mission—and while his story is remarkable, it is a story not dissimilar to that of so many other old-school pizzeria owners in the U.S. Born in Lanciano, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, Pietro immigrated to the U.S. and began working in the Berwind-White coal mines at age 11. He developed black lung and, with his life savings, took a leap and bought a building in Windber in order to start his pizzeria.
“He didn’t want anyone in our family to have to work in the coal mines,” D’Arcangelo said. “He saved his money and opened this pizzeria—really on his own back.”
For D’Arcangelo, the shop was simply part of her childhood. “We would go there on Sundays, and we would eat,” she said. “And on Christmas Eve, we’d have 40 or 60 people for the Italian Christmas Eve dinner.”
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But, like many small-town kids, D’Arcangelo had dreams of seeing different parts of the world. After studying graphic design, she entered the marketing world, landing her first job in Oklahoma and eventually founding her own agency in 2013. In some ways, the marketing agency was formed out of necessity—a young, single mom, D’Arcangelo needed something that she could fit into her busy schedule.
Over time, that agency grew to serve hundreds of clients—and employ dozens of people at once—but after years of nonstop work, D’Arcangelo found herself burned out. Around the time she confided in her husband that she felt like making a change, her father suddenly needed heart surgery. She moved home temporarily to help out and took over the shop’s marketing.
“He was so grumpy,” she laughed. “He was like, ‘I don’t believe in marketing!’ And I was like, ‘OK, no problem, just get in the car.’”
2 Years, 4x Sales
When Erica began tinkering with D’Arc’s digital footprint, the smalltown shop had little more than a neglected Facebook page. D’Arcangelo built a website, claimed the business on Google Maps—a pivotal step she’d recommend to all pizzeria owners—and started uploading photos. She created Instagram and TikTok accounts and experimented with different types of content. The posts that ended up being most successful surprised her.
“One day, I was like, ‘Let’s do some pizza-cutting videos because they make like 100 pizzas a night,’” D’arcangelo said. “So, easy peasy: I just stood back there [and started recording]. I went to bed one day, woke up the next day and it had a million views.”
D’Arcangelo leaned into what worked. One TikTok video eventually reached 64 million views. Soon, accounts with massive followings—like @pizza—started collaborating with the shop on Instagram, and foot traffic at D’Arc’s Pizza exploded.
“My dad would be like, ‘We’re full, we have a line out the door…they saw it on TikTok,’” she said. “Every day was like that—and now it’s been years and years of that…The first year, I think he said he saw double [the sales]. He’s at about 4 times [higher] right now.”
Building a Brand—and a Community
As the content gained traction, D’Arcangelo saw new potential—not just for her family’s shop, but for sharing pizza stories more broadly. After years of sometimes feeling uninspired by the work she was doing, D’Arcangelo felt a burst of momentum.
And then, one day, her father told her a story about her grandfather and great-grandfather. It was rather insane: Before Pietro opened his shop, some members of the community—possibly connected with the mafia—came by to collect money. Justino D’Arcangelo, Pietro’s father, had other ideas, flashing a gun to the mobsters and telling them to never come back. As Erica heard this story for the first time some six decades later, it clicked: She was determined to write a book about the family’s pizza journey.
That project became A Story About Pizza—her memoir—followed by a children’s book and coloring book. In order to promote the original book, she launched the podcast. Across 26 episodes, she has since hosted pizza personalities like Rob Cervoni, Professor Pizza, Laura Meyer and Mike Hauke of Tony Boloney’s.
“I love doing the podcast,” she said. “I’ve met the coolest, most genuine people. Every person that’s been on… their story, who they are—it’s just really awesome.”
What’s Next
Today, D’Arcangelo balances her agency with her pizza media work—spending about 60% of her time on the latter. She just launched a new children’s book, Pietro’s Pizza Toppings, on July 24—her father’s birthday—with a Christmas novel and another children’s book due later this year. She’s also planning to soon unveil a new season of the Pizza Story podcast.
“I would love for this to just be my full-time career, with the books and the podcast, and just really be in this space supporting pizzerias,” she said.
For D’Arcangelo, it all comes back to family—and to honoring the legacy of small-town pizzerias everywhere. She’s somebody who has come full circle: She’s returned home.
“There’s this struggle and this other side of: What did you go through to open this business?” she said. “The people are just very generous, hardworking people—And I love them.”
You can learn more about D’Arcangelo’s journey on her website. Her books are available through Amazon.
The Expert’s Pizzeria Marketing Advice
- “The Google local listing: That thing is gold,” she told PMQ. “We get thousands of people every month looking for us and finding us through that listing.”
- She also urges operators to post regularly on social media and to embrace simplicity. “Just have someone in the kitchen take pictures,” she said. “Post very consistently… If you’re not posting, in people’s minds, you’re not there.”
- D’Arcangelo also emphasizes the power of collaborations on Instagram. “Collabs are the way of the world now… we all lift each other up.”
