When the Weekly recently caught up with Frank Vento, owner of Carmine’s Pizza Kitchen, it just happened to be opening day at the fourth location of his pizzeria, located on Raiders Way in Henderson. It was yet another significant milestone for Vento and his entire family, as they continue to impact the local food scene.
Pizza, pasta and salad at Carmine’s
It all began when his parents, Carmine and Annie Vento, came to Las Vegas on vacation in 1975 and fell in love with what was then a small desert outpost. A true-blue Sicilian by way of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Carmine knew all the secrets to a great pie, a skill he learned with his siblings early in life.
“If you ever saw Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta, where he walked up to the window and grabbed two slices, that’s where they all started. That’s where they all learned how to make pizza,” Frank says.
Carmine drove a cab when he first came to town, but pizza was never far from his mind. He didn’t see that hallowed pizza-by-the-slice tradition here. So in February 1976, he opened the first Villa Pizza in Las Vegas’ Commercial Center, a hub of activity for locals and marquee names alike.
“At that time, a lot of the dealers lived around the Hilton in the Las Vegas Country Club, because they wanted to be close to the Strip. And we had the pizzeria right there,” Frank says. “It was a very, very small town back then, so Elvis would come in there and Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. So once that happened, word spread really quick.”
Villa expanded to multiple locations, run by various members of the family, and Carmine eventually incorporated Instant Replay sports bars into his portfolio, along with Ventano’s Italian Grille & Seafood in Henderson. (Carmine continues to run that business.) Meanwhile, his kids, including Frank, picked up where Carmine started—in the pizza business. Frank served a stint in the corporate world, including working as director of food and beverage for MGM, but he says he missed the family atmosphere of his father’s restaurants.
“When you get somebody dinner, it’s exhilarating to see them happy,” he says. “It’s exhilarating to put a restaurant team of 50 employees together and watch them all work in happiness instead of stress.”
As for the family’s overarching philosophy on running restaurants, well, that hasn’t changed at all in the four decades-plus they’ve called Las Vegas home. Family remains at the heart of it, even more so since Annie’s death last year, and as Frank and his siblings have taken on more of responsibility running and expanding Carmine’s Pizza Kitchen.
“We focus on our quality of food,” Frank says. “We go by all the recipes that have been handed down from great-grandfathers and grandmothers from Sicily. The pasta dishes and the soups are made the same way in the house that we make them in the restaurant.
“We focus on giving people a great product at a great price,” he continues. “We’re not looking to drive a Ferrari on the profit margin. We’re looking to make a living and hopefully still be successful and see the local community the way we did when we first got here in ’76.”
CARMINE’S PIZZA KITCHEN
Multiple locations, carminespizzakitchen.com.
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