Mary's Pizza Shack
Mary Fazio started in Boyes Hot Springs in 1959 with her father's recipes and her own pots. The dough, the sauces, the focaccia and the ranch are still mixed daily, and the family still owns all ten doors.1
Why go
Fazio put the kitchen in the open so she could greet every guest on the way in and see whether anyone left hungry.1 The company still cooks that way and says so bluntly: no heat lamps, no frozen dough, no canned sauces.1 Her son Toto took the business in 1978, handed it to his son-in-law Cully Williamson in 1988, and her grandson Vince Albano became chief executive in 2004, five years after Mary died.1
Heather Irwin went and asked about the ranch dressing, because her husband kept saying it was the best he had had.3 They make it in house, with buttermilk, red wine vinegar, fresh herbs and Tabasco in it, and they printed the recipe in the Mary's Italian Family cookbook.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: a pizza and a side of the ranch. That is the thing a Sonoma County food editor went out of her way to investigate.3
- Order: the gluten-free pizza if you need it. It has been on the menu since 2009.1
- Avoid: driving to downtown Santa Rosa for this. That branch closed in May 2022 in a company restructuring and is not on the current list of ten.42
What locals & experts say
- Heather Irwin, Sonoma Magazine (25 June 2021):
We need to talk about Mary's Pizza Shack's ranch dressing. It's totally the best, right?
She checked, and it turns out it is homemade.3 - The company on its own kitchens:
No heat lamps. No frozen dough. No canned sauces.
1
Good to know
- This is the Windsor door, 9010 Brooks Rd, and it takes orders through Toast for pickup and catering.2
- Ten locations, one family. Fairfield, Napa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, two in Santa Rosa, Boyes Hot Springs, Sonoma Plaza, Vacaville and Windsor.2
- The kitchens are open to the room, which is why kids sit at the counter and watch the dough go up.1
Verdict
could-visit — Heather Irwin checked the ranch dressing and it is buttermilk, red wine vinegar, herbs and Tabasco, mixed in the shop rather than poured out of a bucket. Gluten-free pizza has been on since 2009, which matters if you are feeding a table, and the kitchens are open to the room so the kids can watch the dough go up. Toto ran it from 1978, Cully Williamson from 1988 and Vince Albano from 2004, and the North Bay Business Journal gave the company a philanthropy award in 2017 that I could not verify at the Journal. Nobody has reviewed the Windsor door specifically, so what you have is the chain's standard and Irwin's dressing.