Owner of Cam’s Pizzeria talks about opening the first pizza store in Geneva more than 40 years ago, working 100-hour weeks and date nights with his wife
By Stefan Yablonski
Tony Calascibetta and family celebrated Cam’s 40th anniversary in Oswego in January 2024. The owner of Cam’s Pizzeria is showing no signs of slowing down.
Q.: Give us a summary of what you do?
A. I have been in the pizza business for 45 years now. I operate three locations and have two others under my wing for a total of five.
Q: How did you get started?
A: This business was my brother’s dream. My brother, Cam, he is the one that had the passion for the pizza business and I helped him out back in Geneva and I caught the bug. My brother wanted to open his own place and he picked Geneva. The Oswego store is No. 4.
Q: You started at quite a young age, correct?
A: Yes. I opened up the store in Ontario while I was still in high school. The very first person we hired, her name is Rita. We had her move into my brother’s bedroom at my parents’ house so that she could run the store while I was in school. I ended up graduating early.
Q: Your brother retired, but you’re still going?
A: Yes. I fell in love with the business. My brother is pretty much retired now and I’m still doing it. I have the Camillus location and a location up in Watertown. We opened up a couple years ago in Port St. Lucie in Florida.
Q: How do you keep it all straight?
A: I am blessed with good help at the three that are under my wing. I have some very good people working there.
Q: What are the best sellers.
A: The classics are still popular, cheese, pepperoni. We have stuff like Buffalo chicken wing pizza and chicken bacon ranch pizza. The kids like the new flavors.
Q: Do you still make pizza when you’re not working?
A: I make pizza once a month now. I make it once a month because my wife and I have a date night — our date night is we go downtown to the Rescue Mission and we feed the homeless. People from our churches come with us and we hand out some clothes and other foods; we play some Christian music, we have people pray for them. It’s fellowship, to make them feel like they are part of the community.
Q: You support a lot of organizations in your communities.
A: That’s right. We still do a lot of fundraisers. We help the schools and different organizations. We do as much as we can help. It’s something we are passionate about.
Q: Is there a favorite kind of pizza you make?
A: I don’t have a favorite. I make any kind of pizza. I enjoy making it. It is still one of my favorite things to do. It’s a lot of fun. Pizza is fun to make; pizza is a happy food; it’s a reason for people to gather and to share.
Q: What’s the best part of the job?
A: People! People are the best part of this business. People on both sides of the counter — our team, our staff and also the customers that we meet.
Q: So, after all these years you must have met a lot of people.
A: Over the years we have met many, many people.
Q: You ever think about slowing down? Perhaps even maybe retiring?
A: I’m not retiring. I am slowing down. I don’t work like I used to. Those working 100-hour weeks are behind me. I pass on my passion, knowledge and my resources to other people that want to take over and start doing this stuff.
Q: Was it difficult to get started?
A: It was a lot of sacrifice at the beginning, a lot of penny pinching and a lot of hard work. That was it; mostly hard work.
Q: What is the secret to Cam’s longevity?
A: We are consistent. The quality, the service — it is the same as we were making on day one. We have a great relationship with the community. We are part of the community in the places we are in. It’s the relationship between individuals and the customers that come in. I might not know everybody’s name, but I recognize what they order. None of this would happen without the customers. It’s about the people. Locations are easy to find, setting them up is easy. The hard thing is actually finding the right people, people who really want to do it. If I could find those people, I probably would expand some more.
Q: So you have been serving generations.
A: We are on our fourth generation. We’d do tours for the preschoolers and I remember when I did the tour for a daughter of a preschooler and then I did the tour for the daughter’s daughter. So we are starting the fourth generation which is pretty neat.
