After nearly 40 years running Pizza Box in Glenside, owner Angelo Genova has decided to hand over his apron, his kiln, and his pizza peel in exchange for some much-needed free time.
Genova (who bears no immediate relation to the author), isn’t altogether retired. He still jumps in every so often when management is in a pinch.
“I still want to keep in touch with my customers,” he said. “The best part of my 39 years has been dealing with the clientele to the point that we’re not customers and owners anymore. We become friends.”
The change of pace has been well earned: In the 1980s, the Quakertown resident said he once went six months without a day off “just to keep it going.” He said he’s enjoyed getting to know different generations as the decades rolled by.
“The son starts coming to pick up the pizza when the father retires. I see the response and the appreciation, the respect. This place became a landmark to the point that it wasn’t easy for me to retire,” Genova said. “It was time, I want to enjoy my grandkids and I didn’t want my wife to throw me out of the house. She wants to travel and enjoy life also.”
He’s also overseen various structural changes. Pizza Box’s original location, which opened in 1973 and is now the site of the Wawa on Limekiln Pike, was bought out in the late 1980s.
“They bought the whole strip and we had to change. Fortunately, I found this location. It used to be a hardware store,” Genova said.
Around the same time, he purchased what is now the Moonlight Diner and opened an Italian restaurant called La Caseta.
Today, the popular pizzeria spans three locations: Pizza Box Ambler launched in 2016, and Pizza Box Telford—owned and managed by Genova’s son, Joe—opened in 2023.
Francesco Musso, a Palermo, Sicily, native, has taken over Pizza Box Glenside and Pizza Box Ambler full-time. The Glenside eatery is co-owned by Musso’s father-in-law and cousin, also of Palermo.
A recent father, Genova pops in periodically to give him paternal leave. Musso, 31, recently celebrated his 10th anniversary as a member of the Pizza Box family. He started as a dishwasher—his first job in the U.S.—on April 23, 2015.
“When I came 10 years ago, Angelo was like a relative. I worked in Glenside and then at Ambler for two years. When he thought I was ready to manage Ambler, I bought it with my father-in-law,” Musso said.
After seven years, Genova began to hint at retirement, at which point Musso “convinced him to leave me his place in Glenside, the original. After a lot of convincing, he said okay. It’s a big location, that’s why we have three owners.”
“My goal is to bring this place to the top. It’s already famous but I want to improve that even more. We have a lot of potential,” he said. “Pizza Box is a really different style. I visit a lot of pizza shops and nobody does the job that we do. The service, the quality, the products. I’m still fresh in this country, so I still have a lot of contacts with owners back home, they give me recipes, the new stuff. We have all that here. That’s what makes it Pizza Box.”
A two-time Best of Glenside winner (2019 and 2024), Pizza Box was highlighted by Philly Bite Magazine in May 2024. For more on the Glenside staple, you can visit their website and Facebook page.
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