Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza is both a chef-driven Italian restaurant specializing in New Haven style pizza, and your neighborhood pizza & beer joint. We take as much pride in being locally-owned and committed to the neighborhoods we’ve chosen for our stores as we do in our culinary pedigree and locally-sourced, all natural ingredients.

A passion for food, a commitment to health and sustainability.

We come from fine dining. Before founding your favorite local pizza shop, we ran high-end kitchens in major cities, fed Washington’s elite at catering events large and small, and learned the trade from the best of the best at the Culinary Institute of America. We may not come across as a fine dining restaurant when you take your number and grab your napkins and flatware, but you’d be surprised to know just how similar our kitchen and purchasing operations are to those of some of the best-known chef-driven restaurants in the city. We select every ingredient for its freshness and natural pedigree. We build our antipasti and arancini monthly specials, as well as daily chef’s choice pizza slices and soups, around fresh, locally available ingredients. We order beef and pork in whole cuts from local farms and grind it ourselves so that the meat in every piece of sausage and every meatball on your pizza or in your pasta comes from a single humanely raised, hormone-free, local animal. We order large blocks of mozzarella cheese from a co-op of local farms in Wisconsin, and shred it ourselves so there are no anti-coagulant agents in the cheese on your pizza. We even selected a fountain soda vendor that uses only all-natural cane sugar in its sodas, much to the dismay of die-hard Coke and Pepsi drinkers. It didn’t matter; we didn’t want to sell products with artificial ingredients.

Here are a few of the farms from which we’re currently getting ingredients: Fifer Orchards – Wyoming, DE (peaches); Hares Valley Growers – Mapleton Junction, PA (basil, pea shoots;) Landisdale Farm – Jonestown, PA (cherry tomatoes); Village Acres Farm – Mifflintown, PA (plum tomatoes).

What is APIZZA?

Apizza, pronounced ah-BEETS. If that’s not enough, Wikipedia has an entry on it HERE.

Who’s Behind Pete’s?

Pete’s is owned and managed by two couples and one individual, all of whom have long histories in the Washington DC area food scene.

Joel and Alicia Mehr developed the concept originally. Alicia grew up in New Haven county and brought the idea of New Haven-style pizza to the marriage; Joel had managed a storefront pizza joint on the upper west side of Manhattan in the early 90s and wanted to open his own pizzeria ever since. They met while working for DC catering company Occasions Catering. Alicia and Joel live in 16th Street Heights, and Mehr grew up in Potomac, MD.

Thomas Marr and Kerri Knowles-Marr joined the effort to open the first Pete’s soon after Joel Mehr announced he was leaving the National Gallery of Art, where he and Marr worked together as executive sous-chef and executive chef respectively. Kerri grew up in the United Kingdom, but her family is from Connecticut, so she was very familiar with New Haven style pizza. Tom and Kerri actually met while pursuing degrees at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. Tom went down the fine dining path, with an emphasis on food allergies and dietary restrictions, and Kerri landed more on the hospitality side of the industry before the couple co-founded Pete’s with Alicia and Joel. Marr grew up in Fairfax, where the Knowles-Marr family continues to live.

Tri Nguyen was the final addition to the Pete’s team, joining right before the second location opened in Friendship Heights. Nguyen had spent many years managing multi-unit pizza retail operations in northern Virginia, and was asked to join the team in order to bring some bench strength to the front of the house. He grew up and continues to live in Fairfax County.

Who is Pete?

There are two Petes. Big Pete is co-founder Alicia Mehr’s father, who lived in New Haven, near the East Haven line, until 2014, when he and his lovely bride, also known as Mom, moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to be closer to the family. Little Pete is Alicia’s and co-founder Joel Mehr’s son, a DCPS student (Wilson High Class of 2016), and avowed vegetarian (since age 5). You might see him working at the cash register in Friendship Heights on certain days of the week.

And if your name is Pete and you’re a regular, we’re named for you too.

Is Pete’s a chain?

No. We are locally-owned, not franchised, not interested in franchising, not a chain based in New Haven, and trying not to grow faster than our capability to manage the growth while maintaining the highest standards of food quality and service.

We’ve been asked to open branches as near as Silver Spring (you asked, we did!) and Frederick, and as far as New York, North Carolina, Lake Tahoe and San Francisco. Much as we’d love to live and run a successful business in New York or San Francisco, we’re not planning on leaving the area any time soon. We love metro DC, and we know you need good pizza.

Our vision

Pete’s is dedicated to:

• Revering the Italian food culture of freshness, quality and simplicity
• Using healthy, all-natural ingredients, locally sourced whenever possible
• Respecting and accommodating those with food allergies and dietary restrictions
• Preserving the environment through conservation, recycling, use of biodegradable materials and employing energy efficient practices
• Commitment to a superior customer experience
• Commitment to a fair and enjoyable work environment for all employees