Mossimo's Pizza & Subs

The specialty pizza list at Mossimo's runs further than the storefront promises. The Godfather builds on cup-and-char pepperoni, salami, capicola and mortadella. Blue Dream layers chicken, pineapple, walnuts and a blue-cheese crumble over an olive-oil base. Perogi Pizza arrives with perogi, onion, bacon and a sour-cream drizzle on the cheddar. None of those orders read as a default move from a Pelham takeout counter, and the gap between the casual frame and the named pies is what gives the kitchen its shape. The pizza-and-subs sign on Highway 20 is honest about what the restaurant is, and the menu inside is the half a guest discovers second.

The wider list keeps the casual identity intact while making room for the specialty pies. Cup & Char Pepperoni takes the most familiar order on the menu and turns it over to the crisped, cupped edge that defines a regional pepperoni preference. Buffalo Chicken Pizza runs blue cheese and hot sauce beneath chicken-finger pieces. The Arizona Heat reaches for bacon, green olives, fresh garlic and hot pepper. The Mediterranean stays vegetarian with roasted red pepper, eggplant, artichoke, sun-dried tomato and asiago over olive oil. Chicken wings carry the through-line beside the pies, served as both a starter and a meal of their own, sitting alongside subs, fresh salads, nachos, buffalo chicken fries and homemade focaccia. A vegetarian table reaches for the Mediterranean or the Cheese Lovers; a heavier table goes Meat Lovers or The Godfather; a group order pulls from both halves at once.

The breadth is what makes Mossimo's useful to Pelham rather than just available to it. A slice-and-pop lunch deal anchors the value lane, a quick midday move for a cheese or pepperoni slice with a can of pop. The dining room and the patio handle a sit-down family meal. Takeout and delivery handle the order that needs to travel. A panzerotti goes in a bag on the way out. The same menu fits a weeknight dinner, a Friday wing platter, a Monday lunch when most kitchens nearby are still dark, a school-team meal after the game, and a group order that needs to feed more than its host expected. Few independent pizzerias hold all of those uses at once from one kitchen, and Mossimo's holds them on Highway 20 without reaching for a franchise playbook.

Massimo Citrigno founded the restaurant in Fonthill in 1993, two years after entering the pizzeria business, according to local reporting and the restaurant's own account. The current site on Highway 20 is the larger version of the original — a seven-thousand-square-foot building with seating for one hundred ninety, a dining room, a patio and a takeout counter running off the same kitchen. Local reporting around the move noted no franchise plans for the expansion, and three decades in, that posture is still the one the restaurant honours. The family-anchored frame reads on the menu, on the long sponsorship roster of local teams, schools and community fundraisers, and in the decision to expand on Highway 20 without splintering the name across other locations.

The order most regulars settle into is the one the menu lays out cleanly. Wings to start, a specialty pie at the centre, a slice-and-pop when lunch is meant to be quick, a panzerotti when only one person is eating. The dining room and the patio absorb the larger version; the takeout counter handles the smaller one. The Highway 20 storefront has settled into a Pelham order that pizza-and-wings shops elsewhere in the region keep trying to assemble.