BERLIN – When David Crocetti says fast pizza, he’s not talking delivery.
When the Ellicott City restaurateur uses the term, he’s referring to pizza sold in the increasingly popular fast casual restaurant atmosphere — think Chipotle meets pizza. Crocetti will open the first such restaurant on the Eastern Shore this spring.
“It’s a really unique concept I’m extremely excited about,” he said. “You can walk out with an entrée and a soda for under 10 bucks.”
Crocetti plans to open Piaza, his fast pizza restaurant, in mid-March in the new building in front of the Walmart in Berlin. Customers will be able to walk up to a counter and select from a variety of fresh toppings to create the pizza or piada of their choice. Two minutes in a 900-degree oven and their meal is ready.
Crocetti says the fast casual method of quick cooking paired with quality ingredients has proven popular among pizza restaurants on the West Coast.
“That’s the trend of the future,” he said, adding that the restaurants were beginning to pop up throughout the country.
Crocetti, who owns four Sonic restaurants on the other side of the state, said the concept caught his eye when he started looking for something different to get involved in. He visited similar establishments across the United States. He considered opening a franchise but opted instead to build his own business.
“These guys wanted an enormous amount of money for royalties,” he said. “I said you know what I’m going to build something myself.”
After visiting places that sold made-to-order pizzas as well as others that sold piadas, which Crocetti describes as an Italian burrito, he decided he would put together a restaurant that sold both.
“I merged the two product lines,” he said, adding that gourmet salads would also be on the Piaza menu.
Crocetti said the other thing that made his restaurant different from others was the oven he was installing. Instead of the electric ovens used by many pizza makers, Piaza will use a brick oven that, at 900 degrees, will cook 11-inch pizzas in just two minutes.
“I’d take a pizza coming out of this oven over an electric or gas oven any day of the week,” Crocetti said.
Crocetti says he’s spent the past year developing plans for the restaurant. Although his Sonic locations are across the Bay Bridge, Crocetti — who has a home on the Eastern Shore — says he chose the Route 50 location for his first Piaza restaurant because it was a rapidly growing area. He was attracted to the site near Walmart because it was close to Ocean City without actually being in the resort town.
“I wanted something that was a little less seasonal,” he said. “I thought this particular area pulled from all over. Even in the slowest part of the year, you see a lot of traffic around there.”
Crocetti says equipment is being delivered to the restaurant this week and should be installed within two weeks. He will then spend 30 days training staff before opening sometime in the middle of March.
Within two months of unveiling the Berlin Piaza, Crocetti will open a second location in the Federal Hill area.
“This is going to be my focus for many years to come,” he said, adding that he hoped to build additional locations as the restaurant grew in popularity. “This concept is intriguing to a lot of people.”
Crocetti plans to hire about 50 employees for the Berlin restaurant. Applications can be found online at www.piazafresh.com.