The love of the sauce helps keep Schiano’s Pizza going

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The love of the sauce helps keep Schiano’s Pizza going

Around Osceola

Wednesday, 25 August 2010 00:00

By Lamont E. Clegg
For the News-Gazette
It’s not your typical, hole-in-the-wall, mall food court restaurant. It has a loyal following, and after almost 25 years, it has become a staple of the community and a destination location for many outside of Osceola County.
Schiano’s Pizza gives people from all over Osceola County and beyond a reason to visit the Osceola Square Mall, 3831 W. Vine St., in Kissimmee. The pizzeria and its owner, Peppino Schiano, have anchored that mall for as long as it has been open. And that’s almost 24 years.
Arriving in this country from near Naples, Italy, in 1983, Schiano says he didn’t speak a word of English, but soon after had worked himself up to the position of director of operations for Scotter’s Pizza.
That job kept him on the road traveling from Osceola County to Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and other places around the country. With a pregnant wife at home, Schiano said he wanted to travel less and spend more time at home with his family. That led him to the job of store manager at Scotter’s Osceola Square Mall location in 1986.
From there, Schiano’s Pizza was only a thin crust away.
A year later, Scotter’s was looking to sell that store … and Schiano’s Pizza was born.
Now, almost a quarter of a century later, it is one of the most thriving businesses in the mall.
Schiano credits three things with the restaurant’s staying power.
“We are still here because of hard work, service and using the best product,” he said.
As owner, Schiano has set the example for hard work since his days at Scotter’s.
“At Scotter’s, I was the manager. After I opened Schiano’s, I became dishwasher and everything else,” he mused.
Schiano’s attitude of hard work also is found in his employees. That is particularly evident in Chris DeCarlo. For the last eight years, he has been the restaurant’s manager; and he was a regular fixture for years before that.
“I have been working here off and on since I was 16,” DeCarlo said. “We have a great relationship. I enjoy working with Peppino.”
Schiano said that Chris DeCarlo is one of the chief reasons for the restaurant’s success and DeCarlo says he has learned a great deal about food service from his boss. Those lessons have helped to shape his philosophy about managing Schiano’s Pizza.
“Treat the business like your own and you’ll succeed,” DeCarlo said about his management philosophy. “If you won’t eat it, don’t sell it.”
One of the reasons so many people like to eat at Schiano’s is because of the care the owner takes in selecting the best product for his menu.
“Anyone can make the pizza that I make. The problem is that they don’t want to use the product that I use,” Schiano says. “I use top-of-the-line product.”
There is a not-so-secret ingredient, Schiano said, that goes hand-in-hand with his product. That product is “love.”
“Anyone can make sauce. Anyone can make pizza. Anyone can do anything. Love is, to me, the main thing,” Schiano said.
“The customers can taste the love in the food. “I call the sauce: ‘The Love Sauce’.”
That sauce has had the same recipe for 25 years.
DeCarlo agreed with his employer.
“There is a lot of love in this pizza. All of the food here is made with love,” he said.
And, according to DeCarlo, when he makes the food, it is with his “million-dollar hands.” Coupled with those million-dollar mitts is the way he treats his customers.
“You have to treat your customers like gold,” he said.
DeCarlo is proud of the relationship he has developed with the customers who make Schiano’s Pizza a regular stop during their week.
“One gentleman has come to the restaurant every Friday or Saturday for the last 15 years,” DeCarlo said. “He’ll call me when he’s going away, and I’ll make a special pizza for him.”
He also tells of the customer who recently came to the store from Sanford.
“He bought a pizza to eat, and another to take home to freeze. I love the interaction I have with our customers,” he said.
DeCarlo’s attention to customer service comes down directly from Peppino Schiano.
“For years I have built up my clients with customer service and cleanliness,” Schiano says. “In 25 years we have never had a citation from the Health Department.”
Keeping the restaurant to those standards is directly related to his desire to do the best for his customers. But everything he does at the restaurant is about doing the best job for his customers.
“My customers come from every social class and situation. We service everybody the same,” he stressed. “There is a lady who comes everyday for lunch and she has a situation. I told my employees to serve her everyday like everybody else. In fact, bring the food to her table and don’t take any money from her.”
That may give a little glimpse into why Schiano has been so successful for so many years. He has a love and a need to share his food with his community.
“For me, it is very important to understand why we’re in this business. We’re in the food business to feed the people,” he said. “I have never refused to feed anyone in my life, and I never will.”
Customers at Schiano’s Pizza said they are glad he is still feeding people in the mall. Jessica Alvarado says she has been coming to Schiano’s since she was 11 or 12 years old.
“I’ve been coming here basically for my whole life,” she said. “Through my three pregnancies and everything.”
Originally from New Jersey, Alvarado said she keeps coming back because “it’s the closest thing you can find to pizza up north.”
Louis Alvarado said he has been a customer for 20 years, as well. He said when he was in high school he and his friends would come to the mall, go to the arcade and always stop by Schiano’s for a slice.
“It reminds me of home,” he said.
Despite all of the love his customers shower upon Schiano and the restaurant, he says it’s he who owes a debt.
“I want to thank my customers. Without them I could not have the life I have been able to have,” he said. “I couldn’t have put my kids through school, or anything.”
It’s clear the customers not only can taste the love in the food, they can also feel it in their interactions with both Schiano and DeCarlo.
The restaurant is open seven days a week. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.