LINDENWOLD — Peter Pullella grew up working in his mom and dad’s pizza shop on the Wildwood boardwalk.
Years later, Peter Pullella bought his own shop in Lindenwold — and for a time, even lived in the apartments above the store — and maintained it for 38 years.
Pullella’s Pizza Parlor was a mainstay at 2 North Berlin Road in Lindenwold. It was a gathering place and one where many made memories over the years.
But Peter Pullella said he had to close the business recently because of his health.
There has been interest from prospective buyers or renters, he said, so there’s a good chance that some type of restaurant will still operate at the location at some point.
“It’s our last day,” Peter Pullella said Dec. 31. “I doubt very much that I’ll be reopening it due to my health. We are talking to a couple people about either renting or buying the property. I would imagine that it would most likely be some type of food establishment, whether it’s a pizzeria, a Mexican restaurant. It’s a good location.
“It’s very emotional. I haven’t been there for like three weeks. This is not the way I planned on going out.”
Lena Pullella, his wife, who has helped him run the business, said the community has been so supportive over the years. That support has been greatly appreciated since her husband’s illness.
“My husband’s been here all these years and he developed chondrosarcoma, and it’s very aggressive cancer, very rare,” she said. “Therefore, he couldn’t make pizzas anymore. Our pizza guy was here six days a week and then his brother would come up one day a week to relieve the pizza guy.
“We’ve had great loyalty of our customers. This has been like a family community in this area. Everyone knows us. They always patronize us. We’re very grateful for all them for all these years they’ve given us.”
Growing up in the pizza business
Peter Pullella’s parents were Italian immigrants who came to the United States and made their way.His wife said his parents taught him a lot about hard work and sacrifice and running a business. They retired in their 70s.
“They were immigrants and they settled in Camden,” Lena Pullella said. “They had a little grocery store, then from that grocery store, they met somebody and they taught them how to make pizza and they opened a shop … it’s still there under the same name, Genova Pizza. His parents had this steak and pizza shop there for years. They sold it and the people still kept that name.
“Then they went on the Wildwood boardwalk for 30 some years. There’s a lot of sacrifices he (Peter) made. When everybody’s’ out doing stuff, he’s on that boardwalk. All through his high school years and everything.”
Peter Pullella said that he was the youngest of seven children and that his parents’ first pizzeria was located at 132 Cuthbert Blvd. in Audubon.
“They sold that in 1974 and opened a pizzeria on the Wildwood boardwalk for 30 years,” he added. “I worked with them from age of 13 to 24 on the boardwalk. That’s where I spent my summers all growing up.”
Branching out on his own
In 1985, he purchased the property in Lindenwold. It was in a sheriff’s sale and was a complete mess. It took him a year to put the property in order.
“It was basically the worst property in Lindenwold,” said Peter Pullella, who initially opened the restaurant with his sister Janie before buying her out.
“It wasn’t lived in for seven years. The whole outside was totally overgrown. I gutted the whole property, even the outside was like a mini-forest. You could barely see the building. I had a backhoe come in and level the whole outside of the property.”
He put in all new electrical, drywall, insulation, flooring, windows, ramps, parking lot and more.
“It was uninhabited property and he purchased it, did all the work and opened it as a pizzeria (when) he was 25 years old,” Lena Pullella said.
Peter Pullella said the sign on the outside of the building mentions 1987, but really it was the year before that.
“That’s my second sign,” he stated. “It was June 28, 1986, when we opened. It was originally an old house that was zoned commercial.”
It became so much more than that.
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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Is Pullella’s Pizza Parlor closed in Lindenwold, New Jersey? Yes.