Jared Delamora remembers the night clearly when he tried the best pizza of his life — and it wasn’t along the wisteria-lined streets of Italy but at a Fresno food trailer.
That night in 2022, Delamora discovered Nuovo Pizza when it was just starting out at Willow and Shepherd avenues. It was so good, he had to take some home to his wife, who isn’t a huge fan of pizza. When she tried it and loved it, Delamora said he knew he stumbled onto something rare.
That same night, he went to track down the owner, Christian Tufenkjian.
“I was like, ‘By the way, your pizza took me straight back to Naples, Italy,’” Delamora says.
The two hit it off and decided to become business partners. Today, Nuovo Pizza sets up shop at Willow and Shepherd avenues from Wednesdays to Saturdays and has accumulated a loyal following. Delamora says the line sometimes stretches across the entire lot.
Delamora says there are too few options in Fresno for this style of Neapolitan pizza that uses fresh ingredients, handmade dough and bakes in a wood fired oven. You can easily find places that produce this type of authentic pizza in cities like San Luis Obispo and San Francisco. In Fresno, the pickings are slimmer, he says, especially when it comes to finding a place that lugs around a 3,000 pound oven four days a week.
Delamora says that the massive oven in the back of the Nuovo trailer offers a unique wood-fired pizza experience.
“To find something here that has a wood fired oven inside a trailer – it’s hard enough to find restaurants that even have that in itself,” he says.
Making of Nuovo
What began as a way to evade boredom during the COVID-19 era has grown into Tufenkjian’s entrepreneurial dream.
At 21-years-old, Tufenkjian decided to build a wood fired oven in his parents’ backyard with a pile of discarded fire bricks.
“I just staked my corner out in their backyard, and I promised it was gonna add value to the house,” Tufenkjian says. “It took a lot of convincing and it took a lot of trust from them.”
After messing around with different recipes and perfecting his idea, Tufenkjian officially launched Nuovo Pizza.
Four years later, their eyes are fixed on expansion. Nuovo just recently implemented a coffee menu, and they’re currently on the lookout for an espresso machine.
Tufenkjian says they were set to establish a storefront at the developing complex across the street, but the deal fell apart at the end.
“We learned a lot from it and that was really cool, and it only strengthened us for the next opportunity that comes our way,” he says.
He says the original backyard oven is a permanent fixture at his parents’ house, and they still use it for cooking around the holidays.
Loyal fan base
If passersby didn’t notice Nuovo from the wafting smell of pizza in the making, they’d probably hear the classic jazz and acoustic music coming from the front of the trailer. Or, the lights dangling down from the tent above the wooden tables.
Sandra Zanjas and her boyfriend, Matthew Stramvi, come to Nuovo every week for date night.
“I like their pizzas a lot more,” Stramvi says. “They’re a lot more handcrafted I feel here, and it’s not a super corporate feeling. It’s more of a home style feeling.”
Zanjas brought up Nuovo’s hospitality, specifically, the warm welcomes they receive from Delamora promptly upon arrival.
“He greets you, and he explains the whole menu through and through,” Zanjas says.
So far, Nuovo has a staff of just four people but a loyal following on an up-and-coming corner in Fresno.
“Everyone’s excited for what Nuovo can be,” Tukenkjian says.