Operations

How Tievoli Pizza Bar tripled sales with a zero-dollar marketing budget

Husband-and-wife team Giovanni and Adrianna Labbate and their family have built a wildly successful Chicago-area restaurant, Tievoli Pizza Bar, entirely through word-of-mouth by offering premium, scratch-made New York and Detroit-style pizzas and refusing to compromise on quality or price.

Giovanni and Adrianna Labbate in Tievoli Pizza Bar. Photo: Tievoli Pizza Bar

August 6, 2026 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Connect Media

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Giovanni and Adrianna Labbate didn't spend a single dime on marketing when they unlocked the doors to Tievoli Pizza Bar on Valentine's Day in 2023.

Having walked away from a corporate director of operations role and a career in logistics, the husband-and-wife duo was simply hoping for a quiet first day to train their staff and start chipping away at the bills. Instead, the Chicago suburb of Palatine showed up in droves. It was a baptism by fire that proved their massive leap of faith — and a brand name that intentionally spells "I love it" backwards — was exactly what the local pizza scene was craving.

Labbate started out making pizzas at his father's restaurant at the tender age of 10. He kept restaurants as a career, eventually working for Billy Bricks as the director of operations and owning a Billy Bricks pizza truck. Adrianna Labbate had worked in logistics and pharmaceuticals. They traveled a lot and competed in pizza competitions around the world before creating their own brand. Adrianna remembers drinking a wine in California called Tievoli — spelled backwards, "I love it." The name hadn't been taken as a pizzeria, so they created their own and called it Tievoli Pizza Bar.

"There was nowhere else to climb to other than being an owner," Labbate said in a phone interview with Pizza Marketplace.

Adrianna Labbate said her husband's passion didn't lie in wood-fired pizza like Billy Bricks. Instead, he wanted to create New York-style and Detroit-style artisan pizza.

"The big thing was we wanted to bring New York-style pizza to Chicago more," Labbate said. "There's only a handful of places that actually do it and do it right, so we really wanted to stand out from the rest of the pizzerias in Chicago. By not doing wood-fired or not doing Chicago style, we really wanted to just kind of bring something new to the market."

Starting up

By that time, Labbate had already quit his job at Billy Bricks and he needed to get the doors open. And Tievoli caught on quickly. They opened on Feb. 14, 2023 with just the husband-and-wife duo, Labbate's mother and two employees. They didn't advertise, opting instead for a simple social media post, expecting the opening to be slow enough to teach the staff as they went along.

"We knew we had the pizza, we knew we had the great product, it was just a matter of how much business we were going to get," Labbate said. "And honestly, you know, we were smart. We didn't advertise, we didn't market, but the reason was that we wanted to gradually build the business over time. We were just happy to break even, make income, pay the bills."

But people came, and they came in droves. In three years, the brand has tripled sales simply by word-of-mouth advertising and a bit of social media. There's no large advertising budget, just simple methods of getting the word out.

The Tievoli Pizza Bar pizza truck. Photo: Tievoli Pizza Bar

On the menu

The pizza has a high-hydration dough, which produces an airier and crispier crust. In the past, many pizza makers believed adding more water to the crust would lead to a soggy bottom.

Labbate has been participating in pizza competitions for years. He's not afraid of upscale ingredients or of getting creative with his offerings. That includes ingredients like bacon jam, pecorino crema, mozzarella, roasted garlic, cup and char pepperoni, basil, onions, Peppadew peppers, truffle honey and oregano.

"It just makes sense. When it hits your flavor palate, everyone is like 'wow,'" Adrianna Labbate said.

The pizza with those toppings won second place at a pizza competition in Naples, Italy. Tievoli offers New York, Detroit and Sicilian styles baked in deck ovens.

Everything is made in-house, including dough, sauces and desserts like cookies, brownies, tiramisu and a decadent chocolate flourless cake.

"It's the difference," Labbate said. "I think that's really, honestly, the difference between us and maybe a chain pizzeria or maybe even another mom-and-pop. It really means a lot, and it shows in the product when you make everything from scratch. And it's more profitable as well, and at the end of the day, it's going to taste better."

The brand also has a food truck, which the Labbates call the "sexy" pizza truck, made out of a shipping container. The entire side of the truck is made of glass so customers can see the gold oven inside and the employees making pizzas. That truck offers Neapolitan pizza and caters about 50 weddings a year, plus graduation parties, business functions and festivals.

The menu is just one page, of which 50% is pizza. The brand offers a handful of appetizers and sandwiches, a few salads, panzerotti and some pastas and desserts.

"The key to a successful restaurant is not to over complicate things," Labbate said. "You can't be the best at everything, so we wanted to really kind of simplify the menu to ease the burden on the kitchen so we can have less staffing, and really concentrate on the product more."

Labbate is in the kitchen every day, but he's built systems for his employees to follow. Every salad has a build picture so they can see how it's done. The same is true for pizza and other recipes — everything has guidelines.

A rendering of the upcoming Bloomingdale, Illinois Tievoli Pizza Bar. Photo: Tievoli Pizza Bar

Operations

Labbate has been vocal about refusing to race to the bottom on price. He's a firm believer in paying his staff well, making a profit and offering a quality, premium product. He doesn't coupon or cheapen his offerings in any way.

"I'd rather charge people more money but give them the best experience they're going to get, and they're going to feel that way when they eat it," Labbate said. His pecorino crema is sourced from Italy in one-pound tubs that cost $80. Selling a pizza for $15 isn't going to cut it, he said.

Labbate added that the various awards they have won are a testament to offering the best ingredients they can.

And although there is admittedly a lot of pizza competition in the Chicago region, Labbate said his wife's décor —trendy, a little bit more upscale — matches the price.

"They feel like they're in a restaurant, not a pizzeria per se," Adrianna Labbate said.

Labbate said if brands are considering adding a pizza truck to their operations, it's important to train staff properly — it's 50% food and 50% customer service. It's also great advertising for the brand. For those wanting to start their own pizza business, Adrianna Labbate said to jump in with both feet and don't be scared.

"Don't quit, even when it gets hard, because it's well worth it," she said.

Labbate said it's a business of passions, and it's not a get-rich-quick scheme. The business must "be babysat, nurtured and really get to a level that you want to," Labbate said. "So, for me it's easy, because people are like, 'how do you do it?' and I'm like, well, I've been doing this all my life."

Added Adrianna Labbate: "Because you love it. They have to love what they're doing. If you're going to open up a pizzeria, I'm assuming that you love pizza and you're passionate about it. I say 100% go for it. And nurture it," said Adrianna Labbate.

Tievoli Pizza Bar plans to open a second location in Bloomingdale, Illinois, later this year or in early 2027 in the former home of Antica Pizza. It will feature much of the same menu as the Palatine location, with Adrianna Labbate heading up design.

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the Pizzamarketplace.com and QSRweb.com editor for Connect Media. An award-winning journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and, yes, she can tell you where to find the best pizza slices in the country.

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