The Death of Joe Aiello, Local Pizza Icon

There are not many proprietors of one solitary pizza shop that would garner the attention and fanfare afforded Aiello’s Pizza owner Joe Aiello upon their death, but his was not an ordinary establishment nor was he an ordinary man.

Some have said that pizza is almost a religion in Squirrel Hill (the community in which I resided for the first forty-five years of my life), and that is accurate.

Joe Aiello was the personification of the American dream.  He came to the United States in 1967 with little ability to speak English and with but $17 in his pocket.  He learned the pizza business while working at legendary Mineo’s Pizza of Squirrel Hill, and eventually established Aiello's, a successful business of his own whose basis was serving a great product made with fresh, quality ingredients just as Mineo’s had done for years before Aiello’s Pizza opened in 1978.  Such success does not occur without hard work, and by every account, Joe Aiello engaged in it, arriving at his shop before dawn until recent years in order to prepare ingredients by hand.

I was and am a Mineo’s loyalist that purchases pizza there far more often than Aiello’s (and I am delighted to have a Mineo’s location in Mount Lebanon, not too far from my Upper Saint Clair home).  It was disappointing to me that Joe Aiello elected to open his business a few doors up from Mineo’s, to be a direct competitor of the entity which provided him the knowledge and expertise he needed to go into business for himself, but it is impossible to deny Joe Aiello the praise and admiration he deserves for exemplifying the best of America.

Recent letters in the area's leading newspaper from individuals identifying themselves as the "have nots" express woe over their status, implying that they have been dealt a bad hand and are doomed to stagnation and low income.  Joe Aiello would reject that thesis.  Although this is not quite the land of opportunity that it was decades ago and has become a nation of unbridled corporate greed (e.g., Heinz CEO William Johnson's shameful and obscene $211.7 million severance package), it is still a place where there is the ability to succeed if one has a marketable skill and/or education, and is willing to work hard at something they love.