At Nonno’s Family Pizza Tavern in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood, stained-glass Pizza Hut Tiffany-style lamps dangle from the ceiling, and once-treasured Troll dolls sit atop vintage Sansui speakers blaring hits by Janet Jackson and the Cars. A tabletop Pac-Man game is stationed near the bar, and midcentury rattan chairs and lime green Naugahyde booths comprise the seating inside the dining room. Taking in the whole tableau, you’d be forgiven if Sara and Martin Stayer’s heralded concept, named “Pizza Joint of the Year” by Esquire in 2023, brought to mind visions of macramé and chintz curtains.
Inspired by the Malört-drenched neighborhood spots Sara frequented while growing up in the North Side of Chicago, the Stayers strove to create a similar kind of unaffected, family-friendly restaurant serving cracker-thin tavern-style pizza. And, according to Sara, that true Chicago specialty is paired best with a splash of ’80s kitsch. This includes design flourishes like baseball trophies salvaged from Martin’s past, framed family portraits, Little League photos, and a Tiffany lamp fixture that hung above Sara’s family’s kitchen table 40 years ago. Even with trendier culinary touches like a natural wine list and a cold-fermented sourdough pizza dough made from a 150-year-old starter, Nonno’s never loses sight of its throwback ethos.
“We want our guests to experience the kind of phone-free, TV-free family dinners that we all had growing up,” Sara says. “Everyone we talked to also had special memories attached to pizza places. So we wanted to recreate that and make everyone comfortable.”
While Nonno’s might currently be the most conspicuous retro pizza joint in the state, it’s certainly not alone in its penchant for serving slices with a side of Gen-X sentimentality. In Boerne, Michael Hawes tapped into his former film production career and took inspiration from classic ’70s and ’80s movies when he opened Darkside Brick Oven Pizza Co. last year. A homesick Texan living in Los Angeles, he returned in the early ’90s with visions of preparing New York-style pizza inside a temple to Tinseltown.
Hawes and his wife, Denice, finally succeeded on both fronts. First, they went on an extensive research trip to visit other famous pizzerias throughout the country, curating their own take on the style. This includes a more freewheeling approach to pizza toppings, like a a barbecue iteration that utilizes his mother’s recipe for 12-hour smoked brisket, alongside fresh mozzarella and a smoky scratch-made sauce. Then there’s the pop culture component of his operation, with a high-tech security system safeguarding museum-quality replicas of the Christopher Reeve Superman, “Bruce” the great white shark from Jaws, and a Wampa from The Empire Strikes Back. The two-story restaurant also houses Hawes’ personal collection of vintage toys and a few pieces of movie memorabilia, such as a game from Golf N’ Stuff Arcade played by Ralph Macchio’s character in the original The Karate Kid.
“There’s just something about an ’80s childhood, when I remember riding my bicycle to Pizza Hut,” Hawes says. “Even in movies like E.T., you see Elliott and his siblings eating pizza. Kids and pizza will always go hand in hand.”
And while places like Darkside and Nonno’s seek to emulate the Pizza Hut vibes of yore, the original Plano-based chain is also recognizing the power of the past. Since 2021, the brand has quietly rolled out a string of “Newstalgia” remake destinations that can be identified by the original 1974 logo, red roofs and booths, Pizza Hut Pete stickers on the doors, and of course those iconic, old-school Tiffany-style lamps. Some still even have the salad bar and red plastic soda cups. Rolando Pujol, journalist and author of The Great American Retro Road Trip, was one of the first to write about the phenomenon on his blog, The Retrologist. He’s confirmed 10 such locations in small Texas towns, including Bastrop, Carrizo Springs, Coleman, Fredericksburg, and Hempstead.
Although pinpointing a catalyst for these retro concepts is up for debate, Hawes has a simple theory: “There’s just something about nostalgia that keeps us young.”
