Some businesses start with a plan. Pizza Girls started with a gift nobody knew what to do with.
About five years ago, cousins Natalia Cardona and Laura Arias were working on a farm in the Mount Kisco area when someone offered them a mobile catering pizza oven. “Someone said to us, ‘I don’t want this oven anymore. Is there any way you guys can buy it from me, or I’ll give it to you?’” Cardona recalls. “And we were like, ‘But we don’t know what to do with a pizza oven.’”
The oven sat for a while. Then, little by little, the pair taught themselves the craft. By 2022 they were treating it as a real business, popping up at farmers’ markets, carnivals, school fundraisers, and town events across the area. This year the demand grew big enough that both women left the farm to focus on pizza full time.
Now Pizza Girls is getting its first permanent home, in Mount Kisco, in the space that formerly housed Mexican restaurant Tamarindos.
Owners Natalia Cardona and Laura Arias
The Mount Kisco Connection
The town has been home base for Cardona since she arrived there 28 years ago; she attended Fox Lane and credits the local business community, including the Mount Kisco Chamber of Commerce, with supporting them from the start. The space itself was a matter of luck: Cardona drove past a “For Lease” sign, asked Arias to grab the number, and they called. “I said, I think this is it,” she says.
The move to brick-and-mortar was about ambition as much as demand. “I think as women, we’re very driven,” the cousins say. “I love pop-ups, but we felt like we wanted to do more with this.”
Wood Only
The restaurant is built around a wood-fired oven that holds 10 to 12 pizzas at once, and the owners won’t cook with anything else. Wood, they say, “affects the whole entire cook and the whole feel of the dough and just the look of the pizza itself.” Everything is made in-house, from the dough to the recipes.
The menu will stay pizza-driven but expand to include pastas and proteins, with the oven pulling double duty on lasagna and meatballs. It will also differ from the pop-up menu, which the owners plan to keep running. A mixologist is developing the drink program.
The layout is designed so guests see everything the moment they walk in. “They can see the mistakes when a pizza burns,” the owners say. “We’re very honest.” Pizza Girls will offer table service, plus an outdoor kiosk where customers can place an order, walk around town, and come back to pick it up. The restaurant is a short walk from the Mount Kisco train station.
A Team of Women
Pizza Girls currently employs about 15 people, roughly 90 percent of them women. The name took some getting used to. “We just make pizza,” the owners say. “It’s funny when people go, ‘Oh, but you’re the Pizza Girls.’”
This year, Cardona was named a 2026 Hispanic Women of Impact honoree. “You never see yourself as someone that could make an impact,” she says. “You’re just doing your job.” What matters most to her is what the recognition shows her daughters: “that any little thing you do can make a huge impact on people.”
What’s Next
Farm-sourced ingredients are a goal. Sourcing locally is harder now that the cousins are off the farm, especially outside summer, but they hope to work with area farms starting next year. To help fund the buildout, Pizza Girls is selling merch (sweatshirts, hats, and T-shirts) along with vouchers, including an after-school voucher for kids and options for corporate and holiday events.
As for opening day, the owners promise “a big warm hug from us.”
Website
Pizza Girls is located at 38 E Main Street in Mount Kisco.
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Dining and Cooking