A total of 55 years of pizzeria experience hasn’t been enough to help the family behind the beloved Mr. Bimonte’s keep the doors open in today’s rapidly evolving economy. The Bimontes recently announced that they’ve closed their beloved Cheshire, Connecticut pizzeria, also called Mr. B’s, for good.
Mr. B’s had been owned by the Bimonte family since 1992. Prior to that, they owned Bimonte’s Pizza Castle in Hamden, Connecticut, for 23 years.
According to the New Haven Register, Mr. B’s has “a familial connection” to Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. Mr. B’s founder, Joseph Bimonte, died in 1996. Gary Bimonte, the grandson of New Haven pizza legend Frank Pepe and co-owner of Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, passed away in 2021.
Despite their wealth of pizza knowledge and business smarts, the family has faced worrisome challenges posed by flourishing competition and the gig economy. In a November 3 post on Facebook announcing the pizzeria’s closing, the family cited “many factors” that went into the decision but offered no specifics. The pizzeria hasn’t been in operation since early August 2024, but it was unclear at that time whether the closure was permanent. The November 3 post made it official. So what went wrong?
Before Mr. B’s closed, Kimberly Liso, Joseph’s daughter, had been running the restaurant since her father died and her mother retired. Liso started working there at the age of eight. She is now managing a Mr. Garlic’s location in Newington, Connecticut, the New Haven Register reports.
Cheshire is a town of under 30,000 people in New Haven County, but one thing it doesn’t lack is locally owned pizza shops and, of course, chain pizza stores. Liso told the Register that increased competition in the area—including newcomers like Fuoco Coal Fired Apizza and Anthony’s Pizzeria & Deli—was part of the problem.
Adding to the Bimonte family’s woes: demand for third-party delivery services and the fees they charge. Liso said the fees were hurting Mr. B’s profitability, but hiring her own drivers proved another big hurdle. She noted that about 75% of Mr. B’s orders were for delivery. “Nobody wants to work in one location all day when they can make their own schedule with an app,” she said in the Register story.
Even with so many competitors, Mr. B’s won the Cheshire Chamber of Commerce’s Pizza Wars competition in 2024.
Liso is also now a grandmother at 48 years old after raising her daughter alone while also running the pizzeria. She even kept the restaurant running from mornings to evenings during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We worked so hard during COVID and after COVID,” she said. “We were just so ready to do something else with our lives.”
She added that she missed owning and managing the pizzeria and still loves her customers. “We had a good run. You know, I have zero regrets. I’ve had such a great 33-year career.”
