Since 1984 Boston Pizza
Has served the residents of Hanford with good Pizza , salads , and subs from Boston in a cozy setting
Roy Fialho, left, and his father Manuel have operating Boston House of Pizza since 1982. (Apolinar Fonseca/The Sentinel)
Boston House of Pizza has emerged as a burgeoning regional pizza empire since father and son Manuel and Roy Fialho started the family business with a single Hanford location in October 1982.The restaurant has expanded over the years, opening four additional locations in the South Valley and gaining a growing reputation for quality and flavor. Manuel Fialho, now 82, has been retired for about 10 years. Roy Fialho, now 50, remains actively involved in the business, although a staff of about 60 employees in the five restaurants allows him to focus on the big picture. "I don't need to be here day to day," he said. "My biggest job is quality control." What is the secret of the company's success? "The main thing is you keep things the same," said Fialho, noting he had used the same cheese manufacturer and tomato sauce provider since the beginning. "They are consistent, and that makes our product consistent. "Many restaurants open and you try them and they're great, but two months later, they're not. You have to remain consistent." The other key thing, he said, is to focus on the freshest ingredients. The company uses homemade sausage, marinates its own bell peppers and cooks the roast beef in-house, rather than using prepackaged products. Another big factor in Boston House of Pizza's longevity is its employees, some of whom have been with the company for more than 20 years. "They know how we do things," he said. "They know when something is not right." Before coming to California, the younger Fialho had worked for Captain's Pizza, a small chain of family restaurants in the suburbs of Boston, not unlike the many high school and college students who have worked for Boston House of Pizza for the past 28 years. His father also worked there for about a year as they hatched plans to move West and open a restaurant of their own. "They were Greek and we were Portuguese," said Roy Fialho. "With that many nationalities involved, the pizza had to be good." Many of the customers at Capitan's had visited the West Coast and complained about the lack of great pizza and submarine sandwiches. Being Portuguese and having family in the Hanford area, they decided to open their first location in the Best Buy Center at the corner of Grangeville Boulevard and 10th Avenue. Not long after, they scraped together some money and ran some advertisements in The Sentinel and also got a nice write-up that had a lingering impact. "For years, people would come and tell us they had read about our great pizza and steak sandwiches," said Fialho. "I know that story really helped and got us going." Several well-heeled competitors such as Me-N-Ed's and Pizza Hut were already in the market, but many other small chains have come and gone. The Fialhos were innovators and were the first to bring pan-baked pizzas to the area. There were no Eastern-style sub shops in Hanford, and the restaurant introduced its steak submarine sandwiches and many other novel meal delights to Kings County. Three years after opening the first location, the pair opened a short-lived location in Visalia. But they decided to close the Visalia store so they could open a location in Lemoore. Since then, they've added a restaurant in Corcoran in 1987 and reopened at another location in Visalia in 1990. Five years ago, they opened a second Hanford restaurant in the Target Center on 12th Avenue. Fialho said the business has continued to grow, although the recent slump in the economy has slowed sales and caused him to delay opening a third restaurant in Hanford two years ago. "We're starting to pick up again," he said. "People realize we have a lot of value." With the maturation of the pizza industry, companies have started to fight harder for territory. In the past couple of years, most pizza companies have begun a cut-throat battle to compete more on price, with just about every major player offering some type of large pizza deal for $10. Boston House of Pizza has followed suit, but Fialho stresses the fact that the restaurant offers a 16-inch pizza for that price when most other chains offer 14-inch pizzas or smaller. "They will charge you $17 to $18 for the same thing," he said. Fialho said future expansion is likely, and said he gets a lot of requests to open in cities as far away as Madera or Bakersfield. He'll probably stay a little closer to his roots with any future openings, though. "My children have grown up in this town," said Fialho. "We've seen the town grow. I don't want to spread myself too thin." The reporter can be reached at 583-2423.
