RICHMOND, Va. \u2014 Richmond baker, restaurateur and food entrepreneur Billy Fallen is returning to the brick-and-mortar restaurant business with the latest chapter of his Billy Pie brand. His new, compact pizza shop is scheduled to open this month in the Ridge Road Shopping Center in Henrico’s West End.<\/p>\n
Fallen, whose career has spanned artisan bread, Lebanese cuisine, pastries, pasta and frozen pizza production, said the new 700-square-foot location will focus primarily on takeout but will also feature eight bar stools, a four-top table, outdoor seating, three beers on tap and wine service. The menu will include pizza, a couple of salads and antipasti.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s perfect. It\u2019s small, it\u2019s manageable, the neighborhood, the demographic,\u201d Fallen said during an interview for the Eat It, Virginia podcast. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really great for what we\u2019re going to do there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pizzeria will use one of Fallen\u2019s preferred Marra Forni ovens, a hand-built, 8,000-pound unit capable of reaching 870 degrees, with volcanic ash bricks sourced from Mount Vesuvius. <\/p>\n
According to Fallen, the oven can cook pizzas in about 110 seconds on its rotating floor.<\/p>\n
The West End shop marks a return to restaurant service for Fallen, who in recent years stepped back from daily kitchen work to concentrate on his wholesale frozen pizza business, also called Billy Pie. <\/p>\n
That venture, launched after he experimented with freezing pizzas during slow nights at his former brewery residency at Triple Crossing Beer, now produces nearly 1 million pizzas a year for distribution across six states.<\/p>\n
The frozen pies, including margherita, pepperoni, seasonal white pies and other varieties, are topped with ingredients Fallen sources in bulk from trusted producers. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can buy entire crops of tomatoes grown in Italy,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I know I\u2019m going to be consistent through the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The original Billy Pie gained traction through brewery kitchens and, in 2019, a standalone shop at Patterson and Three Chopt roads. <\/p>\n
Fallen closed that restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing a need for more family time. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou meet wonderful people, interesting, colorful people\u2026 it\u2019s nice to bring something like that to the community,\u201d he said of the social draw of restaurant work.<\/p>\n
Before becoming known for pizza, Fallen built a reputation with Billy Bread, a naturally fermented multigrain sourdough he began baking in the Fan in the 1990s after apprenticing with French bread legend Gerard Rubaud in Vermont. <\/p>\n
His bread, milled from rye, spelt and hard red winter wheat, was supplied to restaurants and grocery stores across Virginia, including Mamma Zu in Richmond, The Cheese Shop in Williamsburg and Kroger grocery stores.<\/p>\n
In 2008, Fallen and his mother, Rusty, opened Aziza\u2019s on Main, a Shockoe Bottom restaurant named for his grandmother. <\/p>\n
The spot offered Lebanese specialties and Rusty\u2019s famous cream puffs. Style Weekly named Aziza\u2019s its 2013 Restaurant of the Year.<\/p>\n
The cream puffs, which developed a \u201ccult following,\u201d will return at the new West End Billy Pie, made once again by Rusty, now 83. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe is so energetic and just on top of everything. It\u2019s beautiful,\u201d Fallen said. \u201cIf you want them, I\u2019ll do them,\u201d he recalled her saying.<\/p>\n
Fallen, who grew up in Newport News, attributes his willingness to take professional risks to a long line of entrepreneurs in his family. He was voted \u201cMost Daring\u201d at Peninsula Catholic High School.<\/p>\n
The new Billy Pie is co-owned with Fallen\u2019s friend James Schroeder, also in the pizza business. <\/p>\n
Fallen said they plan to open soon after the Fourth of July holiday. Updates will be shared on the restaurant\u2019s Instagram and website.<\/p>\n
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. To learn more about how we use AI in our newsroom, click here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RICHMOND, Va. \u2014 Richmond baker, restaurateur and food entrepreneur Billy Fallen is returning to the brick-and-mortar restaurant business with the latest chapter of his Billy Pie brand. His new, compact pizza shop is scheduled to open this month in the Ridge Road Shopping Center in Henrico’s West End. Fallen, whose career has spanned artisan bread,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[8646,8647,8648,6647,3232,8649,8650,3175,3173,3171,3174,3172],"class_list":["post-24666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-virginia","tag-chesterfield-county","tag-hanover-county","tag-henrico-county","tag-petersburg","tag-richmond","tag-rva","tag-tri-cities","tag-virginia","tag-virginia-dining","tag-virginia-food","tag-virginia-grocery-stores","tag-virginia-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117312171864732189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}