Company: Fellini Café & Pizzeria
Owner: Paul Schneider
Location: Providence
Employees: 9
Founded: 1989
Annual sales: WND
A cook is busy stuffing a mixture of barley and vegetables into hollowed
out squash plants after preparing a Russian soup and a tray of candied
apples that sit on a nearby counter.
By no means would this be a strange scene if this were a trendy Thayer
Street restaurant or caterer. But this kitchen belongs to a pizza pad.
Sound weird?
Well it is until you realize you’re at Fellini Café & Pizzeria, a
Wickenden Street fixture and creator of one of the state’s favorite
pizzas.
Their pizza is larger than your average pizza, has a thin wheat crust
and the freshest of ingredients.
“There are thousands of pizza places out there so we realized over the
years that we have to give customers a great tasting, fresh and
consistent pizza as well as everything else we sell,” said Paul
Schneider, owner of Fellini’s.
The 10-year-old business is also known for its atmosphere. Its small
dining area, which has evolved over the years, and its sidewalk seating
have always drawn a college and artsy crowd, giving it a coffeehouse
feel.
By day, the pizza place draws people from the business community and on
weekends families frequently stop in.
Schneider credits an eclectic assortment of employees for making the
business a success.
The woman busy making stuffed squash on this particular day is a Russian
immigrant who is among several Russians at the business, which includes
a mix of ethnic groups.
“(Schneider) is open to other cultures and international foods. So I
cook the Russian and other European foods that I know how,” said Galina
Vasielieva, who calls her boss ‘chief.’
“When I tell my Russian friends that the chief lets me cook what a want
and people love it they are surprised, but they shouldn’t be,” she
added.
Because of fierce competition down the road in the likes of Pizza Pie-er
and on Federal Hill, Schneider realizes how important it is to provide
something that sticks out in the mind of customers.
“I feel as though that in my neighborhood nobody else is doing what I’m
doing and that is important. The neighborhood is a key to a pizza place,
because pizza is a local thing and people remain loyal to their
neighborhood pizza,” he said.
Schneider can still remember his own neighborhood pizza pad as a child
growing up in the Bronx.
“Crosby Avenue was one of the early pizza capitals in New York City.
Pizza by the slice, which we have been so successful in, was born in
that neighborhood,” he said.
Schneider said he took those New York pizza principles with him when he
opened his first pizza shop in the early 1970s in Provincetown. He said
his unique pizza was a hit on the Cape, but he saw a bigger market here
in Providence.
He opened in a leased storefront on Wickenden Street – on the end
closest to the bridge – because of the large amount of foot traffic and
vehicles that pass by day and night.
Fellini’s began as a pizza/coffeehouse/ice cream parlor. The pizza
operation was on one side of a wall while the other side catered to
those in need of caffeine and sweets. That side, affectionately referred
to as “The Cave” by regulars, was a hangout for the younger crowd, who
enjoyed the jukebox and pinball machines.
As the business succeeded, Schneider decided to branch off and opened
another Fellini’s on Eaton Street in the Elmhurst section of Providence.
His belief that each neighborhood is loyal to its own pizza proved to be
correct as his failed in that neighborhood.
“It didn’t do that well. It was a market that was looking for something
else, particularly something for less money,” he said.
The price of his pizzas, which range from $11 for a plain to $16 for a
specialty pizza, has raised eyebrows for some customers, but he said it
really isn’t much after taking several things into consideration.
“Not only are you getting the freshest ingredients in my pizza, but you
are getting more of a pizza,” he explained. “It is a bigger pizza (18
inches) in area. So per square inch it is the same price of most other
pizzas.”
After his attempt to grow outside the East Side, Schneider decided to
take a second look at his Wickenden Street business. In the fall of
1997, he renovated the establishment, cutting out the ice cream and
coffee to give more space to the pizza.
“What we are trying to do is develop the delivery business and the take-
out. That’s the future and where other businesses have been successful,”
he said.
Meanwhile, for the first time since he started tossing dough in
Providence, Fellini’s won The Providence Phoenix People’s Choice Award
for best pizza. The business was also recognized this year among the top
100 independent pizza operations by the trade magazine Pizza Today.
“It’s great to get recognition after all the hard work we have done over
the years,” Schneider said. “People are very picky about their pizza so
to win these awards tell us that we are doing something right.”
