What a love story. En route to New York in 1928, two 12-year-old kids met aboard a ship out of Italy. Vito Ponzo was traveling alone with his 8-year-old brother to join their father, already in New York. Angelina Salomone was with her mother and sister.
The fairy-tale story got derailed on Ellis Island when immigration processing separated the new friends. Each family left to settle into the big city, apart from the other.
Four years later, Angelina and an aunt stepped outside a theater in New York during the intermission of the opera La Bohème. There, as she wrote in a family memoir almost seven decades later, Angelina noticed the gaze of a handsome young man. He teased her in Italian, “You didn't forget me, did you?”
“He immediately recognized her, then she remembered him. That’s the moment they really met. They were always together, always after that day,” said Chris Ponzo, their grandson.
Fast forward to 2009 and Houston’s Midtown.
Vito and Angelina are pictured in old photos on the walls of Ponzo’s restaurant. In one picture, they stand proudly in front of the original Ponzo’s, which they operated from 1955 to the 1970s in Pasadena, California. They look even prouder in another, holding their baby grandson Peter.
Peter and Chris, along with sister Angelina (named for her grandmother), this month celebrate their eighth anniversary as co-owners and operators of Ponzo’s Italian Food, now one of Houston’s favorite pizza purveyors.
“We are Italian. This is an Italian business. And we’re family-owned and -operated,” Chris said.
Everything is fresh and made by hand. Most recipes are Vito and Angelina’s, handed down via Uncle Nino, who still operates his own Pizza Kitchen back in Pasadena. Specialty meats come from the same California supplier that served Vito and Angelina in the 1950s.
Ponzo’s also offers salads, lasagna and spaghetti. Light eaters can choose the Italian tuna sub or the honey roasted turkey. For heartier appetites, consider the two-person calzones or Chris’s favorite, the Ponzo’s Original Sub (ask for yours toasted, the way Chris likes his).
They’re cooking up a growing corporate business, with frequent office-lunch orders of delivered pizzas and 3- or 6-foot party subs. But most deliveries go to homes of hungry Midtown, Montrose and downtown residents.
Dining space inside and on the patio gets tight at peak times, so plan your visit accordingly or call ahead for take out. But note: Taste and quality take a while. During your wait, enjoy the photos on the walls.
The sultry belly dancer is the siblings’ Aunt Antoinette, circa 1966. Actors Sally Field and Rod Steiger and other celebrity fans of the old California Ponzo’s are pictured, too.
At the current restaurant, beer and wine will soon be on the menu. And in a couple of years, the plan is to relocate to a Midtown location that will accommodate full restaurant service.
Until then, the Ponzo’s team is happy tending to their devoted clientele of pizza lovers.
Ponzo’s Pizza & Italian Food
2515 Bagby
713.526.2426
Opens at 11 a.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Closes at 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and at 10 a.m. other weekdays and Sundays. Closed Mondays.
Delivery available for lunch and dinner, all day on weekends.
What a love story. En route to New York in 1928, two 12-year-old kids met aboard a ship out of Italy. Vito Ponzo was traveling alone with his 8-year-old brother to join their father, already in New York. Angelina Salomone was with her mother and sister. 
Vito and Angelina are pictured in old photos on the walls of Ponzo’s restaurant. In one picture, they stand proudly in front of the original Ponzo’s, which they operated from 1955 to the 1970s in Pasadena, California. They look even prouder in another, holding their baby grandson Peter. 
