Pizza business more than pie in the sky

WASILLA — The new Pizza Time restaurant just off Bogard Road in Wasilla is the next in line in a string of pizza places Nadine Simmons and her husband, Greg, have owned over the years.

Almost like the television show “Flip That House,” where confident homebuyers purchase a house, spruce it up a bit and sell it for profit, the Simmons do much of the same with their pizza joints.

Because of that philosophy, just a few short months after Simmons bought the business, Pizza Time is already sold, she said. The couple bought the place, made it profitable, then sold it to someone interested in buying an established business, Simmons said.

That’s been the operation for the Simmonses for the past two decades, with the family owning a passel of pizza joints around the Mat-Su Valley in that time.

Simmons will work the Pizza Time until she’s ready to hand it over, at which time the new owners will take care of daily operations.

This buying and selling doesn’t mean Simmons doesn’t love the pizza business and the pies she sells, although she admits she doesn’t eat pizza all that much anymore.

Moving from Idaho in 1981, Simmons and her husband came to work at Pizza Nepolitano, the now defunct Wasilla restaurant that was owned by a brother.

After managing that restaurant for five years, the couple bought the Pioneer Pizza chain, operating four locations around the Valley. When they began selling those restaurants off, their pizza shop flipping began.

After Simmons sold the last Pioneer Pizza in March 2005, the couple opened Butte Pizza in September of that year. Butte Pizza was sold May 1, which led to the purchase of Pizza Cache, the same restaurant as Pizza Time before the name was changed.

Pizza Time will be the last flip, Simmons said. Now that the restaurant is sold, she said she will retire from the pizza business after she officially leaves Pizza Time.

For her, the years she’s spent making pies was spurred by a love affair with the business.

“I just enjoy doing it,” she said during some down time on a recent Friday afternoon.

Simmons touted Pizza Time’s made-from-scratch pies and said no part of the pizza comes from frozen, pre-processed ingredients.

She’s particularly proud of the Mama Mia pizza, a pie with every topping possible on it.

Since Pizza Time took the place of Pizza Cache, the restaurant already had a loyal clientele and established menu. With business picking up every day, Simmons said the new owners will also take over a well-known moneymaker in Wasilla.

Until then, the restaurant will stay involved in local schools, Simmons said. She said Pizza Time often provides discount pies to schools for raising money and other events.

Her grown children help out at Pizza Time too, because, as Simmons said, they were “born and raised with pizza.”