Campus Pizza keeps Caiazzo family’s legacy alive

At 9 a.m., the smell of fresh dough and tomato sauce engulfs Tony Caiazzo’s store.

He patiently stands by the pizza dough maker, carefully monitoring to ensure its perfection, while also keeping an eye on his secret tomato sauce simmering on the stove.

Caiazzo said it has to be perfect, just like the pizza his family made in Naples, Italy when he was a child.

Caiazzo is the founder and owner of Campus Pizza, a family-run pizza store located at 22 East Fourth Street. that’s been serving Lehigh students and local residents since 1979.

At 84 years old, Caiazzo is in the shop daily from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. He then returns to close it around 11 p.m.

His son, Joe Caiazzo, said Campus Pizza is what keeps his father alive.

“He loves working here,” Joe Caiazzo said. “He loves to see the alumni that come here, talk to all the students and watch people enjoy his product.”

Nowadays, Joe Caiazzo and his older brother Angelo Caiazzo handle most of the day-to-day tasks in the shop.

Tony Caiazzo came to Queens from Italy in the 1960s. He started working as a tailor in a factory until a worker-strike, which led him to to open up his first pizza shop in Neptune, New Jersey.

Every day for three years, he drove all the way from Queens to Neptune for his shop.

When he finally decided to move the shop closer to home, a realtor in New York convinced him to come to Bethlehem and open up a restaurant near Lehigh’s campus.

After that, Tony Caiazzo and his wife packed up their belongings and moved to Bethlehem and bought a house for their family.

Tony Caiazzo said throughout the years, Campus Pizza’s relationship with Lehigh students and the community has been through many changes.

Angelo Caiazzo said 10 to 15 years ago, Campus Pizza employed as many as 15 Lehigh students at a time to deliver pizza. Now, not a single student works for the shop.

This change in labor is not the only difference the family has noticed over the years.

“In previous years, we were a lot more involved,” Angelo Caiazzo said. “I don’t know how it came to the point where it’s not as much. Back in the day, there was Greek Week. People would call us up, and we would sell pizzas at numerous events at Lehigh. Not so much anymore.”

Greek Week was a series of events hosted by fraternities and sororities to encourage potential new members. It stopped occurring at Lehigh around 2010, which Angelo and Joe Caiazzo said was just around the time Campus Pizza started struggling to find Lehigh students willing to work.

Aside from Greek Week, the Caiazzo siblings said Saturdays were the best day of the week when they were teenagers working at the shop.

In the 1980s, Taylor Stadium was on Lehigh’s Asa Packer Campus by Rauch Business Center. Angelo Caiazzo said alumni and students would tailgate right behind Campus Pizza for games.

“As kids, we would come into work early with my father, and then when it was time to go watch the game, we actually went up to watch the game,” Angelo Caiazzo said. “It was a Saturday tradition: work in the morning until the tailgates were over, then go watch the game with the students and alumni.”

To this day, Joe Caiazzo said alumni from the ‘80s and ‘90s come to visit with their kids, affectionately referring to Tony Caiazzo as “pops.”

Aside from the students, Angelo Caiazzo said the restaurant has a strong tie with the residents and community. He said local residents have been the primary reason why the shop has increased its production.

“When my father started, there were literally four or five pizzas in the display case, and maybe a few strombolies,” Angelo Caiazzo said. “Now, if you come here on a Saturday, we have anywhere from eight to 10 different types of pizzas.”

Just like when he was a child, Joe Caiazzo’s kids are involved with the family-run pizza shop.

He said Campus Pizza is not going anywhere anytime soon, and he plans to continue his father’s legacy and pass it down to his children.

“There’s lots of businesses on the South Side,” Joe Caiazzo said. “We have been here for over 40 years. There’s other places, but we’ve been one family.”