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WEST PITTSTON — Antonio’s Pizza is about to complete its recovery from the 2011 flood by reopening its original building at 45 Luzerne Ave.
After the building was lost to the flood, the restaurant began operating in the Gerrity’s shopping complex on Wyoming Avenue. Manager Francessca Carannante, 32, said the business will now use both locations.
“The Gerrity’s location will still be open because it’s smaller and it caters to high school students and the football games,” she said. “We’re contemplating making it delivery in the near future, because I figured it’s something different for the Gerrity’s location because we’ve never done delivery before.”
Antonio’s Pizza is owned and operated by Carannante’s family, including her father Orlando, her mother Adriana, her brothers John, Orlando Jr. and Alex, and her sister, Louisiana.
Carannante said operating two locations will not be new to her family as they once had a location in Wyoming. That building burned down six months after the flood of 2011.
After both locations were gone, it was just a few months before the family opened the Gerrity’s location.
“It was easy getting acclimated over there,” Carannante said. “We still had the same customers and it was very easy. After so many years of doing the same thing, it’s like riding a bicycle.”
The Luzerne Avenue building was originally opened in 1974. In 2011, Carannante said, water in the building was over six feet high, a tree went through an outside walk-in cooler and the business’s dumpster was found down the street.
As work on the building nears completion, Carannante said the business is on track to hold a soft opening on Oct. 10.
A grand opening ceremony will be announced at a later date.
Some features of the Luzerne Avenue building include a new cooler donated by Coca-Cola as well as a grill, a fryer, a stove and a freezer. A lot of the kitchen materials damaged in the flood have been refurbished to look as good as new.
Hot lamps on the front counter will offer pasta and pizza slices for buffet-style serving. The dining room has over a dozen tables as well as a big screen TV.
“Everyone is so anxious and we’re anxious, too,” Carannante said of the business’s re-opening.
