AADL Talks To: Domenico Telemaco, Owner of NYPD

Thu, 08/22/2024 - 2:05pm

When: July 29, 2024

In this episode, AADL Talks To Domenico Telemaco. Domenico tells us about his experiences owning and operating NYPD in downtown Ann Arbor for the past 27 years. He discusses how the business began, changes and expansions over the years, and reflects on popular menu offerings that withstood the test of time.

Transcript

• [00:00:09] KATRINA ANBENDER: Hi. This is Katrina,.
• [00:00:11] ELIZABETH SMITH: And this is Elizabeth. In this episode, AADL talks to Domenico Telemaco. Domenico tells us about his experiences owning and operating NYPD in downtown Ann Arbor for the past 27 years. He discusses how the business began, changes and expansions over the years, and reflects on popular menu offerings that withstood the test of time.
• [00:00:29] ELIZABETH SMITH: Where did you grow up and what brought you to Ann Arbor?
• [00:00:36] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Oh, I grew up in a city in Italy called Molfetta on the Adriatic Sea. Moved to New York when I was 19, met my wife in Long Island. She's from West Bloomfield. We ended up in Michigan in 1995. Opened the store 1997.
• [00:00:57] KATRINA ANBENDER: When did you fully move to Ann Arbor?
• [00:00:59] DOMENICO TELEMACO: '99, I believe. Yeah. The first couple of years I was traveling back and forth.
• [00:01:05] KATRINA ANBENDER: What led to the opening of NYPD?
• [00:01:09] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Well, I owned a pizzeria in Long Island in a town called Sea Cliff in Nassau County and met my wife over there. She worked for the pharmaceutical company at the time. She convinced me that I could have a successful business in Michigan because pizza wasn't that great around here. Well, no, because nobody sold pizza by a slice. I came here a few times for vacation with her and with so many people walking around, I did not understand why nobody was selling pizza by the slice.
• [00:01:45] ELIZABETH SMITH: What was special about Ann Arbor that made you decide to establish a business here?
• [00:01:49] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Oh, U of M. Lots of New Yorkers. Lots of people walking around. I mean, to sell pizza by the slice, I need the crowd in the street. Lots of people walking around, lots of New Yorkers. Fairly rich town.
• [00:02:05] KATRINA ANBENDER: You first moved into the space that you're currently still in?
• [00:02:10] DOMENICO TELEMACO: '97.
• [00:02:11] KATRINA ANBENDER: When you moved into that space, do you remember what was there before, and did you have to put a lot of work into it?
• [00:02:17] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Another pizza we called Omega Zervo. The Giovanni's family, they owned the place by the hospital, and then the U bought the entire property, moved everybody out. In the transition, their father, that was the chef, unfortunately, was hit by a drunk driver and never recovered from his injury. The brothers that were running the store, they felt a little bit overwhelmed, grief, this and that just wanted to get rid of it. The guy running the store, his name was Tony. I just called him and said, you want to sell? And he did.
• [00:02:58] ELIZABETH SMITH: You opened the store with your brother, at least one brother, is that correct?
• [00:03:02] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Well, the owners are my two brothers, myself and my mom. We had a family business.
• [00:03:08] ELIZABETH SMITH: Does it continue to be family run?
• [00:03:10] DOMENICO TELEMACO: It is, still me, my brothers and my mom. Yeah.
• [00:03:13] KATRINA ANBENDER: Do they all live in the area?
• [00:03:15] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Yeah. They all live in Ann Arbor. One is in Italy right now, with mom. It's 100 degrees every day, and they're not enjoying the weather very much.
• [00:03:27] KATRINA ANBENDER: You may have already answered this a little bit, but at the time you opened, there was a lot of other pizza in Ann Arbor too, so how did you decide to distinguish yourself?
• [00:03:38] DOMENICO TELEMACO: We still are the only one that sells it by the slice. I don't understand why, because, I mean, I guess we have proven that it could be successful. I mean, Pizza House, they have a huge facility over there. Cottage Inn. I mean, what happened to Cottage Inn? I don't want to get into that. At the time there was--I mean, Brown Jug made pizza. Another place called South U Pizza, but nobody sold pizza by the slice. And the selection--those that did, they only had the meat, veggie, pepperoni. We came in with a huge selection, bigger pizzas, sold it by the slice, on a display counter, come in, two minutes, you're out the door, don't have to wait a long time for a slice.
• [00:04:27] ELIZABETH SMITH: I was curious about the renovations over the years and expansions, I think in 2007, you had a major renovation. Was that the only one or were there more?
• [00:04:37] DOMENICO TELEMACO: We had another two years ago. I should have brought my wife for that. She's the one in charge of spending money.
• [00:04:45] ELIZABETH SMITH: How big was the original store as compared to now?
• [00:04:47] DOMENICO TELEMACO: The original store was 1,700 square feet. Then we rented the corner room, because we put the bathrooms in that room. We also have, there used to be a shoe repair place on Maynard. We also have the back room that we have our-- we make the dough there, we have a big freezer in there. We have had well, it is still ongoing. Every once in a while, we got to change something because the building is 100-years-old, and I mean, I wish I owned it, but I don't.
• [00:05:20] KATRINA ANBENDER: That's impressive to stay that long in a building when you're paying rent.
• [00:05:25] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Well, every time every time I see my landlord, my first question is like, when are you going to sell me the building? He keeps on telling me never.
• [00:05:34] KATRINA ANBENDER: At one point you also had a second location.
• [00:05:37] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Yeah, we had a location on South University.
• [00:05:40] KATRINA ANBENDER: How did that come about and how long did that last?
• [00:05:43] DOMENICO TELEMACO: That only lasted three years because over there, you are a lot more dependent on students. In the summertime, we used to, the place made money, was profitable, but not as much money to stay open. Rent was obscene over there. I mean, it was $12,000 plus. I also had to pay a percentage of the heating and water for the building because it was all connected into one account. When we left, I proposed them to make the space half, because we had over 4,000 square feet. I wanted to give up all the windows, just be, and I would have continued to operate, but they said no. I'm the only one that I like to say that I chose to leave that tower instead of being thrown out of business.
• [00:06:36] KATRINA ANBENDER: When you say that that South U location had a lot of students, who would you consider to be who supports NYPD now?
• [00:06:46] DOMENICO TELEMACO: In the beginning, it was all students. Now it's mostly the City of Ann Arbor. When the students leave, now business goes down 15-20%, maybe compared to it used to go down 50% . Over the years, I mean, business has increased to a point that, the students just bring that extra work and income that everybody likes. But even without them, we've been around for 27 years. I like to believe that we'll survive.
• [00:07:17] ELIZABETH SMITH: In 2022, you celebrated 25 years, and you had a downtown block party. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
• [00:07:27] DOMENICO TELEMACO: We did it in August. In August, the 15th of August, in Italy, it's a huge holiday called the Ferragosto. If you ever in Italy, the day of Ferragosto, don't get sick. Don't try to take a train, no planes. Everything stops. The idea was, to have it on that day for not only for Ferragosto but for our anniversary. I wanted to do it every year, but then the city said that it was a little too much involved in it. The next one will be when we turned 30, three years from now. We blocked the street. We had some music, some dancing and some beers and pizza, and everything was $20 all you can eat and drink, which I almost got in trouble for that because the state told me that I have to sell beer to buy the piece, I cannot do or you can drink beer.
• [00:08:21] ELIZABETH SMITH: Wow. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:08:23] ELIZABETH SMITH: Do you have any sense of how many people came to that event?
• [00:08:27] DOMENICO TELEMACO: No. A few hundreds. It was all day long. We went through, a lot of beer.
• [00:08:34] KATRINA ANBENDER: Through that celebration and maybe other parts of your life, are you very connected to the Italian community in Ann Arbor, in the general area?
• [00:08:44] DOMENICO TELEMACO: There aren't that many Italians in Ann Arbor. There's some in Sterling Heights and on the other side of Detroit, but I never go out there. I have a few people. There's a dear friend there. He's from Tuscany. There's another guy. Actually, he's a professor of U of M, that is from my own town, Molfetta. He teaches history, I believe. There aren't that many Italians. Sometimes with a student, there's some exchange student that comes across, and they are pleased that we all speak Italian in the store, but again, there aren't that many Italians around.
• [00:09:22] ELIZABETH SMITH: You have a lot of in-person eating in the store and sell a lot of pizza by the slice which you've mentioned, but do you have a lot of business from delivery, or is that still going on?
• [00:09:32] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Yeah, a lot of delivery, a lot of pick up. Delivery, most of it is with Uber and Doordash, and they do take a good amount of--a big percentage, but it's a cost of doing business but, we do a lot of delivery, a lot of sit down. Late night, usually 2:00 AM. It's our busiest time of the day, where with the students in town when they get out of the bar.
• [00:09:57] KATRINA ANBENDER: Talking about that late night, you're open for 11 or 12 hours, seven days a week?
• [00:10:05] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Seventeen, actually. 10:00 AM to 3:00 AM.
• [00:10:09] KATRINA ANBENDER: Oh my gosh. How are you able to sustain that, and are those always the hours that you've had?
• [00:10:16] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Pretty much. For the last 26 years. See, in the beginning, when my brother and I opened, we also had to do all the prep. We used to close at 2:00 AM, do the prep, go home by 5:00, 6:00, wake up at nine o'clock. Go back to work. [LAUGHTER] There's been a lot of hours. Success doesn't just fall out of the sky. It's been a lot of work, a lot of hours, all worth it, of course, but it's always been late night. In the beginning, I had to close when the bar was letting people out. I had people behind the door just knocking. Let us in. [LAUGHTER] Sorry man I got to make the dough. I got to cut the cheese.
• [00:11:00] KATRINA ANBENDER: What do you mean you had to, was that--?
• [00:11:03] DOMENICO TELEMACO: I had no prep guy. We had to not only work the 16-hour shift. Then we had to put in the hours to do--because, I like to believe that part of our success is the fact that everything is done in the store every day. We make the dough, we cut the cheese, we make the sauce. Nothing is pre-made, nothing is pre-- I mean, chicken wings, they come in frozen, but other than that, everything that has to do with the pizza, the cutting of the tomato, the peppers, the onions. It's done every day. It's fresh, it looks good. If I go someplace, I see an onion that it's all red around it, and the pinkish color--nah.
• [00:11:46] KATRINA ANBENDER: You must have a lot of employees then to be able to be open for that many hours. How many employees do you have?
• [00:11:53] DOMENICO TELEMACO: With the students, sometimes we do three shift, sometimes two--20 plus. We used to have 10-12 drivers.
• [00:12:06] KATRINA ANBENDER: Wow.
• [00:12:07] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Now instead, because of Doordash and that, we only have three or four drivers but, yeah, there's still a lot of people. A lot of family make their living thanks to NYPD.
• [00:12:19] ELIZABETH SMITH: I was curious about some of your more unique menu items. So, you offer a lot of things other than just pizza. Then even the pizza itself, you have pasta pizza and things like that. How was that developed over time?
• [00:12:31] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Well, the mac and cheese pizza developed to please the drunken crowd at 2:00 AM [LAUGHTER] That pizza and buffalo chicken at two o'clock in the morning, we can't keep it on the counter. Pasta pizza, it 's actually somewhat of a take of a Neapolitan thing called the frittata of macaroni. macaroni, it means penne. Totally different the frittata, but the idea came from that to just put pasta. What we do, we mix it with a couple of different kinds of cheeses, put it on a pizza with mozarrella on top. My brother in the beginning was like, what? Are you crazy? Who's going to eat this stuff? A couple of hundred pounds of pasta per week. I think people do. [LAUGHTER] We have all kind of chicken pizzas. What doesn't sell in this state, it's pizza with seafood on it, and I tried. Shrimp, calamari, doesn't sell. People love chicken.
• [00:13:32] ELIZABETH SMITH: Did that sell better in New York?
• [00:13:35] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Probably, yes. Especially when I was in Long Island, because we were not far from the Sound. There were a lot more requests for, I don't know. I used 30 cases of cheese and one can of anchovy per week. In New York was-- [LAUGHTER]
• [00:13:53] ELIZABETH SMITH: What have been some of the most popular menu items over the years?
• [00:13:56] DOMENICO TELEMACO: White pizza, mixed mushroom pizza, barbecue chicken pizza. They all sell really well because, in the store, when we decide to introduce a new pizza, we make it for ourselves for like three, four days, we try it. We see how we got to tweak it to make sure that the flavors, but still the biggest seller is cheese and pepperoni. It's classic. I call them old faithful. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:14:26] ELIZABETH SMITH: Are there menu items that you no longer offer that you had at the beginning?
• [00:14:31] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Yes. Stuffed shells, manicotti, that stuff never really sold that much. We have a baked ziti, chicken parmesan dishes. We're more like a New York diner in that sense, but still, 90% of the sale is pizza, because people don't come to the pizzeria thinking that I want a plate of chicken. At some point, my guys in the back, they're all from Mexico. We introduced Mexican food. Believe me, we had the best Mexican food in Ann Arbor. Those guys, to this day when they cook, but it never sold. When was the last time we went to pizzeria, thinking, I want a burrito today. [LAUGHTER] It just doesn't work that way.
• [00:15:16] KATRINA ANBENDER: As a long running business with loyal customers, how do you balance changing what's on the menu and keeping what you're known for?
• [00:15:24] DOMENICO TELEMACO: The stuff that sells the most, for sure, stays on the menu all the time, also on the counter, all the time, but eventually, we try to introduce a few things but, lately we have added a lot of dessert, because we have a display case in the store. Since we have those, we are selling hundreds of chocolate cake and tiramisu and stuff like that. Lately we introduced some kind of ice cream. One of my managers said, we need to sell ice cream. I'm like, sure, sell ice cream. Why not?
• [00:15:59] ELIZABETH SMITH: Have you always offered the desserts?
• [00:16:01] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Yes, we have always had a couple of them, but in the last few years, we really have expanded on that. We have a guy in Ypsilanti that makes our cheesecake and Oreo cookie cheesecake, and those are really good. Chocolate cake, they come from the distributor. I don't claim to make any of that.
• [00:16:21] KATRINA ANBENDER: I'm sure there are many, but what changes have you noticed? What are maybe some of the biggest overarching changes you've noticed in Ann Arbor since you opened?
• [00:16:31] DOMENICO TELEMACO: In the city of Ann Arbor? Buildings. There's tall buildings everywhere now. When I opened, it gave you more of a feel of a small town. I understand that the city needs more revenue, but there's too many tall buildings, if you ask me, but I'm not on the city council, so I don't know. It's good for business. It brings people downtown. But I mean, they should expand parking structures. If you have all these people downtown, hey I love, you know, I ride a bike too sometimes. But there's bike lanes everywhere. I mean, really, you want to go ride a bike. Why don't you go in the country? Why do you have to come through downtown? They're taking out parking spaces. You want to expand the city especially in growth. Everything else with the city needs to expand as well.
• [00:17:28] KATRINA ANBENDER: How about customer wise? Have you noticed a change in what people are willing to try or maybe have their tastes changed?
• [00:17:37] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Not really. I don't think they have [LAUGHTER] Again, when we first opened, we probably had 12 different pizza that we sold by the slice. Now we probably have 25, 26. We don't make them all every day because there's not enough room on the counter. But usually every time a fresh pizza comes out of the oven, and there's a line of people. I run it across the glass. By the time I get to the end of the glass, it's already sold [LAUGHTER] Fresh pizza out of the oven, it's always the biggest seller.
• [00:18:15] ELIZABETH SMITH: How many varieties do you have on a typical day that are out?
• [00:18:19] DOMENICO TELEMACO: 12 to 15. Plus we have Chicago style, we have calzones. We make four different kinds of Chicago by the slice. calzones with different toppings in it, rolls, garlic rolls, the little garlic knots.
• [00:18:33] ELIZABETH SMITH: Yeah, I love those [LAUGHTER] .
• [00:18:36] DOMENICO TELEMACO: We make a lot of those.
• [00:18:38] ELIZABETH SMITH: COVID, the pandemic was notoriously difficult for restaurants. Can you tell us how you were able to make it through?
• [00:18:46] DOMENICO TELEMACO: COVID? Unfortunately, some places went out of business. Those that were left in town, they actually got a boost from that, I hate to admit it, but because the choices were less. The first couple of months, everybody in the store took a 15% pay cut, which after that we started having a good amount of business that we gave them all the money that we had shortened them, to the employee. But then at some point with delivery and pickup only, we were doing almost the same numbers that we were doing prior to the pandemic. Then once the world reopened, the delivery and pickup never diminished. It was added. Unfortunately it helped me, The pandemic. Business wise, I don't wish for a second one, believe me [LAUGHTER], but from a business point of view, again, not just me. I have talking with other business owners. Those who survived. They actually, at the end, ended up doing better after things got back to normal.
• [00:20:07] ELIZABETH SMITH: You would say now that business is not only bounced back, but it's doing better than it was?
• [00:20:12] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Yes, definitely.
• [00:20:14] ELIZABETH SMITH: I found an article that was talking about in 2005, you had a pride rainbow sticker or just a rainbow flag sticker in your store. There was some negative press about it in the Michigan Daily?
• [00:20:29] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Friday night at the Necto is the alternative night. What happened is that one of them came to me. I'm from Italy. Rainbow to me is something that happens in the sky. I didn't know what it symbolized. The guy comes to me and goes, can I put a sticker on your door? Like, sure, go ahead put a sticker on my door. I mean, everybody wants to put a flyer this and that. I allow them to do that. Twenty four hour pass, and I'm on the news. Controversy in Ann Arbor. There is a sticker on the window because somebody from St. Mary's Church had seen it and complained. Now, the church itself, St. Mary, no, they're very progressive. From day 1, they were like, please, we are with you and I was like, what is the big deal? Then they explained to me what the sticker symbolized. I'm like, I don't know. In South Italy, where I'm from, we don't care what people are [LAUGHTER] or want to do. Matter of fact, I remember telling one of the guy on the news when they interviewed me. I'm like, if I knew it, I would have painted the whole building with a rainbow. I would have made the nightly news with Lester Holt. I mean, what is the big deal? Then, some people were like, that represents the decay of society. Some other people was like, you know, what? Thanks for doing that. I was left in the middle, just saying, man, it's a sticker.
• [00:22:01] ELIZABETH SMITH: It was interesting because the article framed as that there were similar flags in other restaurants. It was just interesting that they chose your restaurant to call out because it was pretty commonplace in Ann Arbor at the time.
• [00:22:13] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Got to be because I'm so close to the church and the guy from the church, he was the guy that put up a stink about it. But again, the church from St. Mary from day 1 they were great.
• [00:22:30] ELIZABETH SMITH: Was there anything that we did not ask you that you wanted to talk about today?
• [00:22:35] DOMENICO TELEMACO: The pizza, it's always been consistent because we have been using the same product for 27 years. I think it's one of the key of success of any restaurant. Location is important, staff is important, all of this, but consistency because if anybody has a favorite restaurant that they go there and now all of a sudden the French fries are limp and not good. We have been using the same product, making it in the same way for 27 years and pizza has always being the same product as the day that we opened.
• [00:23:12] ELIZABETH SMITH: What are you most proud of?
• [00:23:15] DOMENICO TELEMACO: My three kids [LAUGHTER] My wife too. It's been a good ride. It's been a wild ride. It's been fun. A lot of work, a lot of--like, Art Fair of last week was insane. With the weather being in the mid 70, it was one of the busiest we ever had. Then since COVID, they don't have vendors. Same as during COVID. Less choices for people to go eat. Even though after 27 years, it's a lot of people that come just for the pizza and the beer.
• [00:23:50] ELIZABETH SMITH: It's great pizza.
• [00:23:51] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Thank you.
• [00:23:52] ELIZABETH SMITH: Thank you so much.
• [00:23:53] DOMENICO TELEMACO: Well, my pleasure.
• [00:24:05] ELIZABETH SMITH: AADL Talks To is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.