Corfu's Pizza Pantry gets big write up in pizza magazine
The ongoing success of Pizza Pantry has made the national press.
A trade industry magazine, Pizza Today (yes, pizza shop owners have their own trade magazine), featured the Corfu pizza parlor in its latest edition.
The article details how Bev Snider (at first with her sister and mother as partners) took a low-budget pizza shop in the village and turned it into a thriving business that draws a crowd throughout the year.
Snider started the company with her mother and sister in 1983 in the middle of the village of Corfu, having bought the take-out shop on the cheap. “The woman who owned it, she said, ‘Sundays are your good days. I made $34 Sunday.’ That’s what we grew from.”
In 2000, Snider’s sister left the business and she took it over full time. Three years ago, they gutted an empty bowling alley turned bar and grill nearby and converted it into a 120-seat freestanding restaurant that afforded them much needed additional parking. “I’ve always wanted a dine-in place, but we just didn’t have room for it,” Snider says.
Pizza Pantry Manager Adam Kahabka said he suggested the article to Pizza Today a year ago after the business made an obviously successful transition to the much larger location.
"It's (the article) is a pretty big for us," Kahabka said. "For a small business to grow that much in such a small community, especially some place as small as Corfu, we thought was exceptional."
Pizza Pantry has flirted with disaster a couple of times in the past year and come out unscathed. First, there was the tornado that blew right by its parking lot. Then there was a small fire in the basement on Jan. 10.
The fire, Kahabak said, did minimal damage and the restaurant was open for business at its usual time the next day.
