As a new college grad in a bleak job market, Mike Garibaldi noticed a lack of food options near Tennessee’s University of Memphis and imagined opening a deli near campus. Instead, fate connected him with out-of-towners who wanted to start a pizzeria. They exited the business after a year, but Garibaldi’s Pizza is still going strong, celebrating 50 years in 2025.

With a $2,500 initial investment, no experience, and recipes pulled from both sides of the Italian-American family (Mike and his wife, Donna), Mike learned on the job—and struggled the first year. But business picked up, enabling a second location in 1979 and a third in 1986, both in eastern suburbs that housed growing families.