Pizza Restauranteur Returns To His Roots

A veteran pizza shop owner returned to his pizza roots in Mountain View and opened a shop in town.

Curt Moscini has owned the Mountain Mike’s Redwood City franchise store since 1992. At the time, the Mountain Mike’s corporation sent Moscini down to a small Mountain View restaurant, Milan Pizza, in the Blossom Valley Shopping Center across from , to learn the ropes.

While he has since acquired more restaurants in the Peninsula and South Bay, Moscini kept an eye on that community-oriented Mountain View spot and final leased it this year.

“I always sort of kept my eye on it for some reason. I would drive by and see how things were going,” Moscini said. “There is a nice little community here.” 

This year Mountain Mike’s restaurant replaced the recently closed Milan Pizza. Moscini leased the establishment in April 2011 and officially opened Aug. 1.

The new restaurant has been well received by the community.

Sean Smith of Los Altos said the new establishment has a "better atmosphere." There are TV’s and video games for the kids "and most importantly, better food," he said.

"The food at the old place simply was not good," said Sminth. "I remember going in there at two o’clock in the afternoon and they were pre-making pizzas for the dinner rush hours ahead of time and just letting them sit. The result was the end product was just not that good."

It's unknown why Milan Pizza closed and the previous owner did not return Mountain View Patch's calls.

According to Heather Forshey, of the Santa Clara County Department of Environmental Health, Milan Pizza did not have any identified food borne illness investigations in its files. However, in previous restaurant's the most recent inspection dated August 2010 notes mentioned a housefly in the kitchen, open sugar and flour containers, and the kitchen door left open during business hours.

Still others will miss the old restaurant and will try to adapt to the changes.

“My family was actually big fans of Milan Pizza,” said Kristine Dworkin of Mountain View. "More than 10 years and now two kids later, we feel like we traveled a long way with them. We held lots of soccer team parties and family celebrations at Milan.”

Moscini added that he is holding a discount program for SFHS students and staff.

At all of his locations, Moscini tries to make his restaurants a place for the community. He added a larger gathering area in the restaurant, as well as more games. 

Moscini owns Mountain Mike’s restaurants in Redwood City, Belmont, Campbell and now Mountain View. He jokes that he cannot franchise any more locations because he has run out of children to help run them.

"This really is a family business and I’m surprised to say that we work quite well together," Moscini said. He has three grown children who help run the locations that he's not at that day, while his wife is the "salad queen" he said and helps as well.

"I really believe the most successful pizza parlour has an owner physically in them," he said.

At the new location, he removed the ceiling and heightened the lighting, added several large televisions, added more video game machines, made a bigger community gathering area, added new tile and carpets, got rid of the bar, made everything up to ADA standards, and more.

Moscini said the biggest difference in the food is the quality and freshness of the meats and dough. He likes how there are standard Mountain Mike’s dishes but that each franchise is free to have some leeway with new dishes as well.

“It’s sort of come full circle now," he said. "I’m back in Mountain View.”