Next time there’s a temptation to criticize the work ethic of this generation, consider the path of Inferno Apizza owner Michael Masto.
Masto, 20, bought his first pizza truck while a senior at North Haven High School, opened a pizza restaurant last year and he’s not even of legal drinking age.
It’s thanks to his grandfather that Masto already has five years of business experience at 20 years old.
“My grandfather is the male role model in the family. I worked with my grandfather for years,” Masto said. “I liked his style.”
Masto has a small, thriving, mostly takeout pizzeria at 628 South Colony Road in Wallingford where they serve New Haven-style pizza, salads and calzones.
He also has two busy pizza trucks that travel to parties throughout New England. The truck end is called Rolling Inferno.
He said nothing for him can beat the feeling of rolling up to a celebration playing old school music, the excitement of guests as they watch the dough being tossed and the pizza being made.
“Working the pizza truck isn’t like a job,” he said. “People are excited about watching it being made.”
Masto learned the trade early and the old-fashioned way by working at his grandfather’s former Inferno Wood Fired Pizza in North Haven from about age 14.
By the time he was 16, Masto was doing the ordering and managing the business, he said.
“I grew up fast because of him,” Masto said.
His grandfather, Christopher Beauton, closed the North Haven restaurant about a year ago and is now his grandson’s “business consultant,” as well as working the pizza truck in a pinch.
Instead of taking over that business, a big restaurant, Masto opened his place in Wallingford about a year ago.
All the staff there are family members: siblings, cousins, aunts, his mom, grandmother, plus one longtime employee of his grandfather’s who is “Like family,” he said.
“We keep it very close,” Masto said, noting keeping the high standard is important.
Masto said his grandfather has been in the pizza-making profession for 50 years, working for some of the legendary pizzerias such as Modern Apizza and Big Green Truck Pizza, both in New Haven.
Masto said he uses Beauton’s pizza recipe: a special dough, scratch-made sauce and “the best cheese in the world.”
“We use nothing but the best ingredients,” he said. “Everyone in our family has learned or is learning to make pizza.”
Masto uses a gas-fired oven in the restaurant and the trucks have wood-fired brick ovens.
He said Inferno’s basic food truck package has an edge because they put out an all-you-can-eat buffet of pizza, gelato, fresh salads. Customers can expand that by adding stuffed breads, calzones and other items.
“We have a blast,” Masto said. “They love the big beautiful oven.”
The trucks operate year-round and can feed from 20 to 200.
Masto, who works about 80 hours a week has an old-school kind of spirit when talking about the business.
He said his business actually is his social life along with his work life.
“If you don’t like what you do, you’re in the wrong business,” Masto said.
Masto laughed and said he recently told his mom he has to get some additional customers because he already knows the names and back stories of all of he has.
“They keep me going like family,” he said of customers.
