PITTSTON — DeMuro’s Pizza has been a place for Italian food on the go for 40 years. Its success has now caught the eye of city officials.
At a recent meeting, the city council members presented the DeMuro family with a proclamation that honorarily designates Butler Alley as DeMuro Way to celebrate the business’s success.
Joe DeMuro, founder and co-owner of DeMuro’s Pizza, was humbled by the gesture.
“For a guy that just rented the place for $100 looking for a job, here I am 40 years later,” he said.
Councilman Mike Lombaro spearheaded the designation, saying he was approached by Joe D. DeMuro, Joe’s son, about the business’s milestone.
“I know their son Joe very well,” Lombardo said. “He was in the fire department for a number of years and we served together. He reached out to me and said it was the business’s 40th year and asked if we could give a nice gesture. They work in Pittston, they live in Pittston and they’ve become a Pittston landmark.”
Lombardo stressed DeMuro Way is an honorary designation and the alley will still be known aas Butler Alley to avoid confusion with the post office and GPS navigation systems.
The opening of DeMuro’s Pizza goes back further than just a man with a dream as it all started when Joe met his wife, Bev.
Joe’s father owned an Italian restaurant in Philadelphia called DeMuro’s Italian Restaurant.
Seeking to get out of the food service, Joe enlisted in the Navy but, upon completing his duty, his father, who lived in Miami, Florida at the time, asked Joe to return to Philadelphia to close the restaurant.
That’s where Joe and Bev crossed paths.
“I went back to Philadelphia and that’s when I met my wife-to-be,” he said. “She was from Bloomsburg and she was working for the state in Philly. I met her through a friend who was in the Navy who gave me her number and told me to give her a call someday. Next thing I know, three weeks later, we’re getting married.”
Joe and Bev moved to Lime Ridge together and lived in various other places in Pennsylvania before coming to Pittston in 1974 where Joe worked as an operations manager for W.T. Grant, a store-based chain of mass-merchandise.
The Grant company shut down in 1976, but Joe didn’t want to leave Pittston, so he went back to doing what he does best — making Italian food.
“I saw this little hole in the wall for rent for $100 a month and I called the (landlord) and asked how much he wanted and he said ‘$100’,” Joe said. “So, with what little savings we had we threw it together, borrowed money from a friend of mine and we opened up. I had an oven and a counter which was all I could afford at the time.”
On opening day, there was a line out the door and Joe and Bev never looked back.
On top of operating the business, the couple raised four children — Joe, Angela, Gina Kenney and Dr. Maria Winters.
For 29 years, DeMuro’s Pizza operated at 8 William St. When the landlord sold the building, Joe was informed St. John the Baptist Elementary School was closing, so he purchased the kindergarten building which is where the restaurant sits today.
