Sal’s Pizza, which is currently closed following the February 26 retirement of owners Sylvia and Filippo Tornetta, will change storefronts this summer.
Serving thin-crust New York-style pizza, Sal’s was one of the nearest restaurants to Chapel Hill High School—about a five-minute drive—and was frequented by seniors for off-campus lunch. Sal’s also served general Italian cuisine, including sandwiches and pasta dishes.
“It’s got amazing pizza at an affordable price, and it’s really close,” senior Reese Porter said. “It’s a really aesthetically pleasing place to be.”
The Tornettas, who ran the pizzeria for 37 years, moved from New York to North Carolina in the early 1980s and opened Sal’s Pizza in Eastgate Mall; the restaurant operated there until seven years ago. While their restaurant was open, the Tornettas established a second location, on Homestead Road, which was in business for 13 years.
Filippo primarily cooked and Sylvia said she did “a little bit of everything,” serving as a cook, waitress or cashier. In addition, about four staff and numerous delivery drivers kept the restaurant running, including Chapel Hill seniors Alec Stough and Bradley Kenyon and junior Quinn McLean.
Kenyon, who worked at Sal’s throughout his senior year but left after it closed, said that the Tornettas planned to spend part of their retirement in Italy. Though a sign on the window once read, “Moving Here March 2018,” Kenyon said the restaurant will open with a new owner “sometime over the summer.”
During the change in ownership, Sal’s will move its storefront within the same retail complex, the Station at Homestead at 2811 Homestead Road, to the space formerly occupied by Market Street Coffee. The next-door retailer Chapel Hill Wine began plans to expand its floorspace by taking down the wall that divided it from the former location of Sal’s.
