A Pittsburgh-area team representing two independent restaurant brands — Slice on Broadway and Lucatino Italian Tavern — returned from the 2026 Great American Pizza Challenge at Pizza Expo Columbus with multiple national placements, affirming the competitive depth of the region's independent pizza scene.
Owner Rico Lunardi took first place in Traditional Thin–Flatbread Style and second place overall in America's Best Traditional Thin Pizza. Pizza maker Alicia Reis earned third place in America's Best Pepperoni, Best in the Northeast honors in that category, and third place in Traditional Thin–Flatbread Style. A third teammate, Tracy Dykeman, entered the dessert pizza category. The competition ran October 11–12.
The Competing Pizzas
The team showcased two distinct regional styles. Slice on Broadway's entry featured its classic New York-style crust with pepperoni, while Lucatino's submission was a tonda romana — a Roman-style Margherita topped with pepperoni. Bringing both a New York-influenced slice and a tonda romana to the same national competition underscores how independent operators are drawing on a wider range of Italian regional traditions to differentiate their menus.
"These pizzas represent what we do every day in our restaurants," said Lunardi, a member of the U.S. Pizza Team. "I couldn't be prouder of Alicia and Tracy and the time they put into competing. And we couldn't do any of this without everyone back home taking care of our guests and keeping the shops running."
Operator Implications
For multi-unit independent operators, national competition results carry real marketing weight — particularly in a category as crowded as pizza, where differentiation at the neighborhood level is an ongoing challenge. Slice on Broadway operates six locations across Pittsburgh-area neighborhoods including Beechview, Carnegie, Wexford, East Liberty, South Side Works, and Robinson. Lucatino Italian Tavern, named after Lunardi's sons Luca and Santino, operates in Carnegie and specializes in Roman-style pizzas, house-made focaccia, and pasta.
Competition circuits like the Great American Pizza Challenge serve a dual purpose for independent operators: they provide external validation that can be leveraged in local marketing, and they keep kitchen teams engaged with craft and technique — a retention consideration that resonates across restaurant labor and team-building coverage. The tonda romana style, still relatively niche in U.S. markets, is gaining traction among independent pizzerias looking to offer something distinct from conventional Neapolitan or New York formats, a shift well documented in food and beverage industry trend reporting.
For Lunardi, the Columbus event also served as a gathering of the broader U.S. Pizza Team community, reinforcing the peer network that serious independent operators rely on for technique exchange and industry benchmarking.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
