Volcano Pizzeria: The Windsor Restaurant That Invented Windsor-Style Pizza (1957–1986)

The pizzeria that invented Windsor-style pizza

Every Windsor pizza with shredded pepperoni, canned mushrooms and cornmeal under the crust traces back to one room: Volcano Pizzeria, at 157 Wyandotte Street West on the corner of Victoria Avenue, from 1957 to 1986. It closed forty years ago, most of its staff went on to open their own shops, and the recipe they took with them is now the city’s signature. This is the documented story, with the gaps left honest.

Who opened Volcano

Volcano was opened by two cousins, Frank Gualtieri and Gino Manza. The name came from Mount Vesuvius, the volcano over Naples. Where the recipe came from is a family argument the record does not settle: a 1985 Windsor Star profile says Manza learned to cook in Boston and adapted that recipe, while Gualtieri’s family says he learned to make dough at a cousin’s pizzeria in Detroit. Gualtieri died in 1989; Manza retired in 1986 and sold the building.

From diner to 400 seats

Volcano started in 1957 as a 60-seat Italian diner; the Windsor Public Library found it listed as the city’s first “pizzeria” in the 1957 Windsor City Directory. Pizza ovens went in during an early-1960s expansion, and at its peak the room seated 400. It ran an early delivery fleet of Jeeps and Volkswagen Beetles, decades before delivery apps. A 1962 photograph of the Wyandotte and Victoria corner, with the Volcano sign, survives in the Windsor Prints archive.

What Volcano changed about pizza

The 2022 documentary The Pizza City You’ve Never Heard Of credits Volcano as likely the first to do three things at once, and the CBC and the Windsor Public Library agree:

• Shredded pepperoni instead of sliced rounds, so it covered the whole pie and crisped in the oven.
• Canned mushrooms, which did not burn in the hot deck ovens the way fresh ones did.
• Cornmeal in and under the crust, giving the bottom its faint crunch and sweetness.

The family recipe, as told to the CBC in 2016, is specific about cheese: Uniondale mozzarella from Windsor’s Galati Cheese Company, and Success brand canned mushrooms. Cornmeal is listed as optional. That is the whole Windsor-style pizza formula, written down.

A fair caveat: the library and PMQ Pizza Magazine both note there is no consensus on who invented the style. Sam’s Pizzeria and the original Mario’s have their own claims. Volcano is the one with the paper trail.

The Volcano family tree

Volcano’s real legacy is who left it. Arcata Pizzeria’s Bob Abumeeiz told Belt Magazine that most Volcano employees “took the recipe and ventured on their own,” and Arcata, family-run since the early 1950s on Dougall Avenue, traces its own recipe to Volcano. Flavour Network reports that “many former employees” opened pizzerias after the 1986 closing. The record does not name each employee-to-owner chain, so we will not either; what is documented is that the style spread through people, not franchising, which is why a dozen unrelated Windsor pizzerias make a near-identical pie. See the ones that carry it on in our best pizza in Windsor guide.

What is there now

After Manza sold in 1986 the building housed the Downtown Mission until the Mission moved to 664 Victoria Avenue around 2000; the Mission sold that later building in 2021. Who occupies 157 Wyandotte Street West today is not documented in any source we could find, and we would rather leave the line blank than guess. Volcano itself was featured in a 2016 exhibit at the Chimczuk Museum.

Does Windsor really have the most pizzerias per capita in Canada?

You will see the claim on this site and everywhere else. Its origin is filmmaker George Kalivas promoting the 2022 documentary; the National Post repeated it in 2024 and Wikipedia cites the Post. No statistical study has been published. What is verifiable is the count: WindsorPizza.ca lists more than 200 pizza places across Windsor-Essex, and Galati’s Peter Piazza estimated about 200 pizzerias for the region. For a city of roughly a quarter-million, that is an extraordinary number by any measure; “most per capita” is plausible and unproven.

Frequently asked questions

Who invented Windsor-style pizza?

Volcano Pizzeria, opened in 1957 by cousins Frank Gualtieri and Gino Manza at Wyandotte Street West and Victoria Avenue, is credited by the CBC, the Windsor Public Library and the 2022 documentary The Pizza City You’ve Never Heard Of with shredded pepperoni, canned mushrooms and the cornmeal crust. Other pizzerias make competing claims and there is no formal consensus.

When did Volcano Pizzeria close?

In 1986, when Gino Manza retired and sold the building to the Downtown Mission.

Where was Volcano Pizzeria?

157 Wyandotte Street West, at the corner of Victoria Avenue, in downtown Windsor. (One library page lists it as Wyandotte East; Victoria Avenue meets Wyandotte West.)

What cheese did Volcano use?

The family recipe specifies Uniondale mozzarella from the Galati Cheese Company in Windsor.

Which pizzerias came out of Volcano?

Arcata Pizzeria traces its recipe to Volcano and says most Volcano staff left to open their own shops. Individual lineages beyond that are not documented.

Is there a documentary about Windsor pizza?

Yes: The Pizza City You’ve Never Heard Of (2022), directed by George Kalivas, which covers Volcano and the Windsor style.

Sources

• CBC Windsor, Jonathan Pinto, “Volcano Pizzeria: a look into one of Windsor’s most famous pizza palaces” (June 10, 2016); reprinted by Canadian Pizza Magazine
• Windsor Public Library, “History of Windsor-style pizza”
• Wikipedia, “Volcano Pizzeria” and “Windsor-style pizza” (citing Windsor Star, April 6, 1985 and May 16, 1986; National Post, August 28, 2024)
• Belt Magazine, “Cheese, please” (2015); Flavour Network, “Windsor pizza history”; PMQ Pizza Magazine
• Windsor Prints, Volcano Pizza at Wyandotte and Victoria, 1962; Windsor News Today, Downtown Mission sale (May 6, 2021); Daily Hive on The Pizza City You’ve Never Heard Of

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