A famous D.C.-area pizzeria will be closing its last location in the region after over 50 years of business.<\/p>\n
Armand\u2019s Pizzeria and Grille will shut its doors later this month; a co-owner of the business cited financial issues and mounting pressures on small businesses as reasons for the closure.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted on Armand\u2019s social media, the owners wrote: \u201cWhile this chapter is coming to an end, we leave with a heart full of gratitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe success of Armand\u2019s was never just about the food, it was about the people of our community. The support you have given us over the years has meant more than words can express.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the restaurant announced its last day open will be June 20, people have been lining up to get a final pie.<\/p>\n
Paul Rist drove over an hour from Virginia to the Rockville location when he heard about the closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up on Armand Pizza and I haven\u2019t had it in about 20 years,\u201d Rist said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I couldn\u2019t miss the opportunity, so I got a couple pies and get to share with my kids, they\u2019ve never had it, so it\u2019s a little piece of childhood that I get to revisit and enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community has been great; customers have been great. They\u2019ve all been telling us stories,\u201d Chris Sappe, co-owner of Armand\u2019s, told WTOP.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday we were so busy, everybody came in, wanted to get another pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armand\u2019s has been in business for 50 years and made a name for itself with its Chicago-style deep dish. But due to financial reasons and a struggling environment for small businesses, they will have to shut their doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMontgomery County is a tough place to have a family-owned business with minimum wage increasing, food cost increasing, obviously gas and everything else that affects everybody,\u201d Sappe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t compete with national chains like Domino\u2019s or Papa John\u2019s because they just push the food at such a low cost, but we use fresh ingredients every day, we pay the extra money for the high-quality ingredients, but eventually you\u2019ll price yourself out.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A famous D.C.-area pizzeria will be closing its last location in the region after over 50 years of business. Armand\u2019s Pizzeria and Grille will shut its doors later this month; a co-owner of the business cited financial issues and mounting pressures on small businesses as reasons for the closure. In a statement posted on Armand\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[483,484,14108,616],"class_list":["post-16256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pizzerias","tag-pizzeria","tag-pizzerias","tag-rockville","tag-small-business"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117162844057655004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}