Joe DeBartolo has pizza in his blood. He came from a Sicilian family of restaurateurs (his dad, Vito, opened his first pizzeria in 1966), then ended up owning 75 I Love NY Pizza locations up and down the eastern seaboard. He sold them all in 2008 when the economy got bumpy for New York-style pizza, taking the opportunity to return to Sicily to refuel a bit.

While there, he noticed that Italians were gaga over pizza by the meter, these enormous rectangular pies that could be customized in sections. He brought the notion back to the Tampa Bay area and opened Pietopia in St. Petersburg early in 2015.

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Source: http://www.tampabay.com/