Pizza is a crowded category, but it’s also a divided one. At one end are legacy pizzerias known for quality and tradition, often limited to a single city. At the other are national chains built for reach and efficiency. Few brands have managed to hold onto the integrity of the former while operating at the scale of the latter, but Ah-Beetz is built to sit squarely in between. By Tamara Rahoumi
Scaling the Slice: New Haven Pizza Goes National
Pizza is a crowded category, but it’s also a divided one. At one end are legacy pizzerias known for quality and tradition, often limited to a single city. At the other are national chains built for reach and efficiency. Few brands have managed to hold onto the integrity of the former while operating at the scale of the latter, but Ah-Beetz is built to sit squarely in between.
The name itself is a signal. “Ah-Beetz” is the phonetic pronunciation of “apizza,” the term used in New Haven, Connecticut, where this particular style of pizza took hold. Known for its thin, charred crust – crisp at the edges, chewy throughout – and a careful balance of sauce, cheese and toppings, New Haven pizza has long held a near-mythical reputation among enthusiasts. Founder Nicholas Laudano grew up in that world and spent decades working within it before setting out to bring it beyond the region. What he saw was a gap.
“All the best pizzerias in the country don’t even have 100 stores altogether,” said Laudano. “Then, you have Marco’s, Domino’s or Pizza Hut, and they have 65,000.”
The opportunity wasn’t to compete with, either. It was to build something that pulled from both.
“We fall in the middle. We took the best product and higher quality and merged it with the mainstream masses,” he continued.
That philosophy is clear in the food. The menu isn’t sprawling, but it’s deliberate, anchored by a mix of traditional pies and signature offerings that reflect the style’s roots. Classics like the New Havener, notably served without mozzarella to preserve that strong tomato flavor, sit alongside staples like margherita and white pies. Also, the white clam pizza stands out as a defining regional favorite. A handful of additional items, like wings and breadsticks, round out the menu.
The key isn’t menu breadth; it’s quality and consistency. Every pie should taste as if it came from the same kitchen whether you’re in New Haven or nowhere near it. That kind of consistency isn’t easy to achieve, especially when you’re working with a food with such high expectations.
“Everybody’s a pizza expert,” said Laudano. “I don’t think there’s another food sector that is as criticized as pizza.”
So rather than rely on individual technique, Ah-Beetz has designed around it and built the model accordingly.
“We’ve eliminated the oven guy,” he said.
Instead, there’s a conveyor belt oven sourced directly from Italy, engineered to reach the same intense heat as a traditional coal-fired oven. The result is the same char and crisp without the variability that comes with relying on a single person’s touch. However, personal touch does come into play behind the counter.
“You have to have a good operating partner there, talking to the people, greeting the people, working the store at ground level,” Laudano explained.
That human layer is what will separate the most successful Ah-Beetz locations from the rest. The brand has built a product and system that’s ready to travel –
and has already made its mark – beyond New Haven. It just takes the right people to make it land.
Tamara Rahoumi