DeFelice Bros. Pizza’s Mission Statement is a clear commitment to assure customers’ expectations should always remain high and will unfailingly be met or exceeded, because that is the way to get things done right the first time, says Dominic DeFelice, company founder and president.

September 1982

The door was first opened for business at DeFelice Bros. Pizza in Shadyside

This week marks the start of DeFelice Pizza’s 30th year in business.

“Our successes have really been built based on offering our customers consistently great foods – our nationally award winning signature classic pizzas, and a menu filled with carefully selected Italian specialty dishes we know our customers love,” shared DeFelice.

But there is one more ingredient to his successful business recipe, and it is one he considers pivotal to past and future DeFelice Bros. successes: customers who are more than satisfied.

“We have always paid close attention to what our customers have to say about the foods we prepare – our products, but we also genuinely want to know what they think about the services we offer,” shared DeFelice.

“So as we begin this celebration for the 30th time we are continuing the tradition of thanking our customers by offering several days of unbelievable pricing on select menu items – which always include our pizzas – and by sharing a limited number special coupon groups that also offer the kind of pricing everyone wants to find. We call them our peel-a-deal,” said DeFelice. “These are attached to our boxes during the first part of this our 30th anniversary week. They are special long-term coupons. Each of our nine stores has a limited number of these special coupon groups to share as a celebration of our anniversary and our thanks to the customers who make that possible.”

Today DeFelice Bros Pizza shops and sit-down restaurants – totaling nine locations in two states- offer not just an impressive array of traditional and innovative Italian favorites, but an array of popular customer services as well including carry-out for one, the whole family, or for the whole team; no added fee delivery; and a customizable style catering menu.

Just over three decades ago the Shadyside native returned home from college and decided it was time to begin working on his future business and personal successes, and made the commitment to launch that dream from the heart of his hometown.

Thirty years later the foundation of the successful business remains grounded in Shadyside, but the stores are found across the region in Ohio and in West Virginia.

Measuring the degree of success a business venture enjoys can be done in an endless variety of ways, and when it comes to evaluating the level of success enjoyed over these past thirty years the approval marks for each of the DeFelice Bros. Pizza locations can be found exclusively in the “they get it right” category.

One of the critical elements in the success enjoyed by DeFelice and those who have invested in establishing franchised DeFelice Bros. Pizza stores in the Ohio Valley rests on his commitment to making sure each dish is prepared in a consistent manner at each location, and with the freshest possible ingredients and attention to details large and small.

Always working to maintain a select menu offering authentic Italian influenced and freshly made foods – whether a salad, specialty pizza, custom ordered calzone or toasted sub or a family-size selection of everyone’s favorite pasta dish – everything is brought to customers freshly made daily, he offered.

“All our original recipes were dishes we had designed to serve our family and friends,” shared DeFelice. “While they have been adjusted for commercial use in our nine DeFelice Bros. Pizza kitchens the ingredients we use and the techniques we employ remain true to our original recipes.”

The variety of pizza the company offers its customers has become more diverse in recent years, but customers know they can count on DeFelice Bros. Pizza always being built on a foundation of freshly made oven-fried crust covered in equally fresh ingredients – and all of it being combined just the way you want it when your order is placed.

DeFelice has led company pizza making teams successfully into a variety of industry competitions, from local to international – and has walked away having earned some prestigious awards for the popular pizzas enjoyed by customers of the company’s nine locations.

One such award was will always carry added satisfaction for DeFelice and his team as it was earned on Italian soil: “Best Pizza in the USA,” said DeFelice. “But the real measure of how good our food tastes is made daily by the people we work for: our customers. Theirs is the opinion that should and does matter most to us.”

The proof of the company’s success is always in the inviting taste of every handcrafted product sold at DeFelice Bros. Pizza stores, but the fun of competition with his peers is seldom to be overlooked.

DeFelice Bros. Pizza’s popularity is regularly attested to through successful competitions seen locally, regionally, nationally and even on occasion – internationally.

On a local level Defelice Bros. Pizza stores have earned winning designations from The Best of the Valley’s annual awards, specifically in the area of which pizza shops and related products are selected as top quality and the designation is presented to a local pizza business selected for the distinction based on its popularity among those who choose to purchase its products: the customers.

DeFelice Bros. Pizza creating award winning pizza is nothing new to the leadership team of this locally headquartered company, as pizza products from DeFelice have garnered regional, state, national, and international pizza competitions for quality and taste.

Quality ingredients coupled with years of refining ones skills when it comes to pizza preparation and construction: these each play an important role in the dramatic creation of a handcrafted DeFelice pizza making it nothing less than a true work of art.

“We make our dough fresh every day. It is the perfect foundation for our special, oven-fried pizza,” offered DeFelice. “This happens at every DeFelice Bros. Pizza store, every day. Our dough is never frozen. We add the sauce and bake the pizza once and then add the toppings and bake it a second time so that it comes out perfect. We have found that this is the only way to produce our pizza properly and we hope our customers agree.

“Ultimately each pizza is covered with the freshest ingredients which are used to make the traditional style sauce used for the pizza and for a variety of our other menu items that require a fresh tasting tomato sauce is used to assure we offer a consistent top quality taste to customers, no matter which store they visit,” he said.”This all comes together in a pizza we hope our customers will always see as pizza “worth going after.” – and “because Italy is just too far away!”

A sampling of past DeFelice Bros. Pizza competition results from recent years includes the following successes:

• 1990 won 1st place in Cleveland Pizza Bake Off competition in Cleveland, OH

• 1991 won 1st place in Cleveland Pizza Bake Off competition in Cleveland, OH

• 2003 won 3rd place in North American Pizza Pizzazz competition in Columbus, OH

• 2005 won 1st place in North America Pizza Pizzazz competition in Columbus, OH

• 2005 won “Best in the USA” in World Pizza Championship in Salsomggiore, Italy

• 2009 won 2nd place in North American Pizza Pizzazz competition in Columbus, OH

• 2010 won 2nd place in North American Pizza Pizzazz competition in Columbus, OH

DeFelice Bros. Pizza coupons, specials and more can be found at www.defelicebrospizza.com or on its Facebook page.

DeFelice Bros. Pizza store and restaurant locations include: Martins Ferry, 740-635-7700; Shadyside, 740-676-8282; St. Clairsville,740- 695-5090; Wintersville,740- 264-9702; and in West Virginia – Bethlehem, 304-238-0200; Follansbee, 304-527-4992; Moundsville, 304-845-9300; National Road in Wheeling, 304-232-8999; and Weirton, 304-723-0980.

Loccisano can be reached at kimfromthetl@gmail.com