There’s only one way to celebrate that big win on the baseball field, or your child's birthday party. Kids demand it and adults love it, we're talking about pizza!
And there is one family who’s made it their mission to deliver the best possible pie to your table for decades, it’s what brought us to Tony’s Pizza.
Tony Martinez jr., who served as a Kern County firefighter for 25-years, decided to take over the family business that began in the 1970's.
"I was a Kern County firefighter, also running the family restaurant during that time we opened up the first tony’s pizza in Delano in 1979 so for 36- years ago I worked in the family restaurant," Martinez said.
And now he's on a mission to expand the business that began with his father Tony sr.
In this operation, it's all about the family. At each of Tony’s 6 locations from Delano, Shafter, and Bakersfield family members run the day-to-day responsibilities. And there is a common theme at each location, centered around firefighting.
Each of Tony's pizza locations features pictures of firefighters, "live incidents" and historical firefighting engines, scattered along the walls of the special banquet rooms.
”it’s all part of owning a restaurant and having it look appealing for the families to come," Martinez said. "This is your one stop shop you can either have your families come in, or team events or birthday parities.”
We sampled one of Tony’s seven famous pizzas. On our trip we watched as they prepared a chille verde pizza.
"We bake it with the the actual pizza so it’s a mixture with the shredded pork and the chills mixed in, which is not as liquidly and it doesn’t come out soggy it comes out crispy, Martinez said.
Each of Tony’s pizzas prepared with the freshest ingredients. "Quality is a big thing people talk about making a great pizza, but you really have to want to make a pizza that way because it costs more and it’s hard to get the products sometimes," Martinez said.
Those high-quality ingredients going into the more than 5-thousand pizzas Tony’s will make in a given week. A pace in his business, that Tony says will never slow down.
”We’re here everyday, we work 7 days a week, the family gets up everyday goes to one of the shops across Bakersfield or in Tejon Ranch at the outlets we’re always around it’s a business but we have to be there it’s part of our life.
And it all started right here in Kern County.
