ASHLAND — The Landoll family is no stranger to Ashland or its business community.
The Landolls’ latest venture is pizza-making via the opening of Holy Pepperoni: Apizza Joint in Ashland.
The new pizza place can be found at 1315 Cleveland Ave, the former Donna D’s pizza location. The building has been a pizza restaurant for more than 50 years.
Owners Jimmy and Shayla Landoll worked to establish the restaurant for only six weeks. They decided on a whim they wanted to own and operate a pizza place, despite having no prior pizza-making experience.
“Location was right timing. We were looking and I just saw it for sale on the internet,” Jimmy said.
Holy Pepperoni quietly opened on Nov. 13, only announcing its establishment on its Facebook page two days prior. Yet, the soft launch still brought in plenty of business, Shayla said.
Jimmy is the owner and CEO of Landoll’s Mohican Castle in Loudonville. He has experience with managing the castle’s restaurant, The Copper Mug Grille, but pizza, subs and wings are unfamiliar territory.
Jimmy said any time he and Shayla travel to a new place, they always try to find a “mom-and-pop pizza shop,” so their love for pizza has always been strong, especially for New Haven, Connecticut, style.
“We’re going for more like a classic Italian pizza restaurant vibe rather than a regular chain restaurant where you go in, get your pizza, go home and eat it,” general manager Kobee Vandine said. “It’s not fun that way, but when you come in here, you get to watch people throw dough in the window.”
Vandine is Shayla’s son. He is running the restaurant with his best friend Gavin McClurg, who created the signature homemade dough.
“I got a phone call from Jimmy one day and he was like, ‘Hey, you wanna come open up a pizza restaurant for me?’ So then I called [McClurg]. I said ‘Hey, what you doing?’ And boom: he quit his job, and here we are,” Vandine said.
The two graduated from Ashland High School in 2022. McClurg has been working in restaurants during and after high school, so the move felt natural.
What sets the restaurant apart from other pizza places?
McClurg and everyone else working in the restaurant agree the dough is what sets Holy Pepperoni apart from other Ashland pizza places.
“It’s a thin crust, charred, but it’s typically cold fermented dough, so it’s supposed to give it a chewier, kind of more structured bite. It’s supposed to be hand-stretched, simple ingredients, with a charry look and lighter sauce or lighter cheese,” McClurg said.
Their pizzas range from classics, such as the supreme and Margherita, and newer favorites, including buffalo chicken and barbecue chicken.
The restaurant also serves a signature sweet and spicy peach-glaze wings and cannolis for dessert.
“You’re coming into a family-run place with homemade products, homemade food made daily, made fresh with the best ingredients we can find,” Vandine said.
The inside of the restaurant is still a work-in-progress, but Shayla wants to adorn the walls with eccentric decorations from the floor to the ceiling.
“The idea is like (grandma’s) kitchen; we wanted it to be like authentic Italian kind of feel, like it’s been here forever, which [the building] has been,” Shayla said.
She compared her decorating ideas as similar to Buca di Beppo, a family-style Italian restaurant chain (with locations in Cleveland and Columbus) known for its unconventional decor.
The dining area is set to open this weekend. Eventually the Landolls hope to offer outdoor seating during warm-weather months.
Holy Pepperoni is open every day from 4 to 9 p.m., with online ordering available on the website, through DoorDash and Uber Eats. Guests are also welcome to place an order over the phone.
If there is enough interest, Jimmy said the restaurant may eventually open for lunch hours or later dining hours.
“The most important thing was to figure out how to make pizzas, and we got that down, so we thought we’d open and then slowly do the rest of the stuff,” Shayla said.
