Vegas pizzeria celebrates 50 years with $50K giveaway and ’70s prices

For Carmine Vento, founder of Carmine’s Pizza Kitchen, it’s not a slice of life — it’s a life in slices.

Fifty years ago Wednesday, Vento opened Villa Pizza in the Commercial Center on East Sahara Avenue. The pizzeria, which evolved into Carmine’s Pizza Kitchen, showcased pizza by the slice, something common in Vento’s native New York City but unheard of in Las Vegas at the time.

To mark his half-century in the pizza business here, Vento is offering a promotion: Through 9 p.m. Wednesday, folks receive an entry in a $50,000 giveaway for every large pizza they purchase (minimum $20.99) for dine-in or takeout at any Carmine’s location (carminespizzakitchen.com). The random drawing for winners (must be present) takes place from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Raiders Way Carmine’s in Henderson.

The drawing is part of a 50th anniversary celebration that runs from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Raiders Way shop, with $3.50 large cheese pizzas, $1.99 meatballs and 95-cent salads — all prices, for dining in, from opening day at Villa Pizza 50 years ago.

”Vegas has given me this, so that’s why I’m doing this promotion,” Vento said. “It’s about saying thank you to Las Vegas. I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished.”

And well he should be, this immigrant from Sicily who arrived at 9 years old speaking no English, who dropped out of school at 15 to work full time, who helped create the flourishing pizza culture of Vegas today.

Vegas, on a whim

By the time he was in his late teens, Vento, who is 77, had already worked at pizzerias in Brooklyn (where he grew up in a scruffy area near Red Hook), in Manhattan and in New Jersey.

After a two-year tour in the Army, “I decided I didn’t want to do pizzas anymore, 12 to 13 hours a day, six days a week,” Vento said. “I tried office work on Wall Street, I tried working as a painter, I tried working for ConEd (the New York utility), but I didn’t make the same money as pizza, so I went back in. (This exit from and return to the pie would become a recurring theme in Vento’s life.)

He eventually took a job at a Staten Island pizzeria, a busy place where the long hours became a grind after three years. Vento was about 26. He had two young sons. His wife, Annie (who died five years ago after 50 years of marriage), asked him what he wanted to do next.

“It just came out of my mouth — let’s go to Vegas,” Vento recalled. “She said, ‘We don’t drink, we don’t gamble — what are we going to do in Vegas?’ ”

They arrived on July 9, 1975.

Taking a chance on the slice

“When we got to Vegas, I knew one thing — I didn’t want to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, so what’s the first thing I did? I got a job driving a cab,” Vento said, laughing at his move from pizza maker to another job famous for its long hours.

But that job would prove propitious. His fellow cab drivers suggested that he should open a pizzeria after learning about his pizza bona fides from back East. His plan was to open what he knew — a slice shop — but he’d need local restaurant suppliers to extend him credit to get started. They weren’t just skeptical; they were dismissive.

“They said, ‘You can’t make money with pizza by the slice. That’s not going to work, that’s not going to work,’ ” Vento remembered.

Finally, Bob Lawrence, an equipment supplier, took a chance on Vento. “You know, kid, I don’t believe in your project, but I have a funny feeling you’re gonna make it. I’m going to stake you,” Vento recalled Lawrence saying at the time.

Villa Pizza, the name a nod to Roman villas, opened on Feb. 4, 1976.

Expansion, setbacks and a return

At first, Vento was making the pizzas and sandwiches and doing the delivery for the restaurant; his wife worked the front of the house. A culinary strike a few months after the opening brought in a host of hospitality workers, and Vento had to hire a server and a dishwasher. Growth had begun.

Eventually, Vento opened Villa Pizzas across the valley, and for a generation of Las Vegans, the restaurants became a neighborhood staple. Vento sold the rights to the Villa Pizza name and restaurants in 2002.

After that, he would venture into sports bars and other Italian restaurants; the names of some of these spots included “Carmine” to indicate his ownership to longtime customers. Vento would lose everything during the Great Recession, file for bankruptcy, reorganize and think about what came next.

In 2014, a pizzeria space became available at Carnegie Street and West Horizon Ridge Parkway in Henderson. The landlord asked Vento to take it over. He was reluctant, at best.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to be in the pizza business. I don’t want to go back into the business,’ ” Vento recalled. But the landlord gave him a great deal — no signed guarantee, $1 a square foot for 1,500 square feet — and just like that, Vento was back at the pies, the West Horizon Ridge store becoming the first of what today are four Carmine’s Pizza Kitchens in the valley.

Learning to adapt

Carmine’s Pizza Kitchen, like Villa Pizza before it, serves classic New York pizza: a gently crisp crust, foldable, the sauce made using plum tomatoes imported from Italy.

“I know exactly what a sauce is from the smell, from just looking at it,” Vento said. “When I see the sauce is dark on the pizza, I know right away they’re making it with paste and purée and adding water, not from plum tomatoes.”

When he first opened Villa Pizza, Vento only wanted to do cheese slices, and he was taken aback that customers out West asked to pile on the toppings. “I wanted to put nothing on a slice — it was cheese or nothing,” Vento said. “That was a Brooklyn mentality, but I learned to adapt.”

All in the family

Vento’s restaurants have always been family owned and operated. Today, his sons, John and Frank, help him run the business, with Frank separately owning the Carmine’s Pizza Kitchen on American Pacific Drive and the brothers joining to open a fifth location on South Rainbow Boulevard at West Russell Road. A nephew from Italy and a cousin also work at the pizzeria.

After 50 years, Vento now has customers from two and sometimes three generations of families; he draws immense pleasure from that history. He’s also had to surrender to the customer wish for pineapple as a topping; in his Brooklyn heart, he will always believe that’s heresy.

After five decades (since childhood, really), Vento is also still guided by a fundamental philosophy: In every bite of a traditional cheese pizza, you should be able to taste the crust, the sauce and the cheese.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.