When Anthony Guerra opened Oakwood Pizza Box in 2017, he projected that his team would make about 40 pizzas per night in their modest Person Street space.
Fast forward eight years, and the restaurant is cranking out 16 times that amount—an affirming testament to the pizza’s popularity, but also a volume that strains the shop’s capacity.
“Oven space is critical: you can only do this many pizzas in this period of time,” Guerra says. “When you try to go past that, you get trouble. We bump against that upper limit most days we’re open.”
To address the demand, Oakwood Pizza Box is opening a take-out only location this fall at 1842 Wake Forest Road, taking over the former home of Capital Creations Gourmet Pizza, an institution that served pizza for three decades before closing in late 2023.
“It’s super cool to think that one location could be a pizza place for 60 years, when everything else in Raleigh gets changed and torn down and towered up,” Guerra says.
The expansion comes with another notable announcement: Guerra’s plan to implement a profit-sharing program for long-term employees (to qualify, employees need to have been with the company for five years), several of whom have been with him since day one. He hopes it’s a way to make the work more sustainable in an industry that sees high turnover.
“We thought: What if we took a percentage profit, throw it into a pool, and then all the long-term employees invest in that?” Guerra says. “Hopefully, we can keep more employees longer and just highlight how the restaurant industry could be good—maybe restaurants aren’t all doom and gloom. Maybe you could be a professional cook or a professional server or a professional front house manager.”
For Guerra, his new program challenges what he sees as problematic industry norms around compensation. With his business growing, he says he wants to help his employees grow, too.
“The quiet part that nobody’s speaking about is: there’s a lot of restaurateurs making a lot of money,” Guerra says. “They’re driving Range Rovers and Porsches. And they’ll be so quick to tell you how bad the restaurant industry is. The reality is, if I keep telling my management staff how bad the restaurant industry is, how hard it is, how could you possibly ever ask me for a raise?”
Guerra says this dynamic keeps workers trapped in low-wage positions and stifles growth and innovation in the local food scene.
“I think that there are a lot of talented managers, cooks, chefs, whatever, who were just like me before I took my shot at Oakwood,” Guerra says. “We should be promoting them to take a shot. The food scene in Raleigh would be far more interesting if some of these chefs working under these celebrity chefs would get out and do things. You are the machine. You should be able to open your own thing, and you should be able to make a good living. I took that leap, and it changed my life. If I could help promote that in any way, I’m gonna do it.”
Guerra previously worked at his father’s coal-fired pizza restaurant, Bella Mia, in Cary. After his family sold the restaurant, Guerra worked at An Cuisines in Cary and did a stint as the general manager at Crawford & Sons.
pizza in the triangle
Guerra says he became interested in perfecting American pizza after years of making Neopolitan-style pies at Bella Mia.
“I was really intrigued to find out what American pizza could be, or what it would be, or what it should be,” Guerra says.
Oakwood Pizza Box, which recently won the INDY’s Best of Wake County reader’s award for pizza, offers a more flexible approach to toppings than strict Neapolitan traditions would allow. The menu presents three pizza options: a classic round 18-inch cheese with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and fresh basil; a square pizza with garlic and crispy edges; and a white pie with mozzarella, ricotta, and garlic. Customers can customize their pizzas with toppings like onions, peppers, and olives for $2 each, or pepperoni, sausage, and meatballs for $4 each.
The carry-out only Oakwood location marks another step in Guerra’s growing culinary footprint. He recently opened Tutti Pizza in Charleston, S.C., and plans to launch St. Pierre, a wine bar at Raleigh Iron Works, this summer.
Reach Staff Writer Lena Geller at lgeller@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.