'Herculean task': Penzo Pizza one of first restaurants to come back in Montpelier

This profile of Penzo Pizza Co. is the first in a series planned by the Burlington Free Press on Montpelier restaurants as they reopen following flooding that devastated Vermont’s capital city in July. What has the experience been like? What does the future hold?

MONTPELIER ― Dave Penzo opened his pizza place in February. Flooding shut it down in July. He reopened the restaurant in September, feeling as if he opened the same restaurant twice in the same year, which he essentially did.

What happened during the flooding?

Penzo was out shopping for food for his restaurant on Tuesday, July 11. He returned to The Inn at Montpelier, where Penzo Pizza opened five months earlier, to find that people in the inn’s parking lot were moving their cars.

“I had no idea that we were going to flood,” Penzo said. He moved his car, anyway. Two hours later, water cascading down the hill behind the inn and rising from the Winooski River that courses through Montpelier encroached on his business.

Penzo Pizza has a fortunate location compared to many street-level businesses in downtown Montpelier; it’s at porch level of the inn, a couple of feet above ground. Water filled the basement and rose just below floor level.

“We were literally this far away from maybe not reopening,” Penzo said, holding his thumb and forefinger about two inches apart. “We were kind of spared a lot in that way.”

Still, the restaurant suffered significant damage. The floors warped, requiring refinishing of wooden floors and the replacing of linoleum. The building’s heating and hot-water units were damaged, as was the restaurant’s soda-dispensing machine and some food and drink products. A freezer and walk-in coolers were also ruined, as was a considerable amount of food.

“That was kind of a huge loss for us,” Penzo said, adding that the restaurant has not yet received insurance for any flood damages.

The property includes housing for Penzo and some employees at the restaurant – his sons, Tyler and Luke Penzo, are among the workers at Penzo Pizza – and the apartments were flooded as well. Penzo and his family stayed with relatives in Maine for three weeks.

He said he was calm when the flooding started, as the water was only two feet deep and didn’t rise to the main floor of his restaurant. Then he started panicking.

“I didn’t realize the nastiness of the water,” he said. Much of the next two months was spent disinfecting pretty much every inch of the business.

Penzo Pizza began with a food truck. Had Penzo kept the truck he could have made some income while rebuilding the just-opened restaurant.

“That was kind of depressing,” Penzo said. “I literally sold the truck two weeks before the flood.”

How has the recovery gone?

He and his employees spent much of the summer washing and painting walls inside the restaurant. “I’ve been around these  dining rooms a thousand times,” Penzo said.

He and son Tyler drove a rental truck to New Jersey to pick up new washing machines for the flooded inn and apartments and disassembled walk-in coolers for Penzo Pizza. The highlight of the trip, he said, was at an Italian deli in New Jersey where he and Tyler acquired mortadella, cheesecake and cannoli, much of which they ate on the long drive home, reminding them of their own Italian eatery they hoped to reopen soon.

“It was a herculean task to get the place open” the first time, according to Penzo. “This time felt the exact same way. Everything needed to be cleaned. We were building the walk-ins. There was more to do than you can imagine.”

Penzo Pizza reopened Sept. 18, ahead of most flooded restaurants in Montpelier. As one of the few functioning eateries in town, Penzo Pizza experienced a surge in business at first, one that has since leveled off. Penzo said he still struggles to get attention for his restaurant that’s just outside the commercial center of Montpelier, a situation that wasn’t helped by Penzo Pizza’s Facebook page being hacked while the business was shut down. (Penzo is still working to revive that social-media account.)

Penzo Pizza hasn’t replaced its soda-fountain machine; the restaurant is now dispensing soft drinks in cans. Nevertheless, things have been mostly good since Penzo Pizza opened again, five months after its first opening.

“We’re actually doing better (than before the floods). We’ve got more customers, more employees, so we’re pretty happy about everything,” Penzo said. “Business is definitely picking up.”

What does the future hold?

Montpelier’s history of flooding and the threats from climate change loom in the city’s recovery. Penzo isn’t going to let those concerns get to him.

“I’m just sort of going off hope that that is going to be the worst of it,” he said of the July floods. “If it happens it happens. We’re all worried every time it rains.”

He’s just glad he’s making pizzas once again instead of sanding floors.

“We’re here for the long haul, for sure,” Penzo said. “I think we’re all just happy to be back.”

Hours and information

Penzo Pizza Co. at The Inn at Montpelier, 147 Main St., Montpelier. Noon-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. (802) 223-0722, www.penzopizza.com

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Penzo Pizza heralds Montpelier restaurant scene's flood recovery