Here’s why one of the Triangle’s best pizzerias is hitting pause on its pizza menu
One of the Triangle’s top pizzerias has put a pause on pizzas, for the most part, as it expands its menu in new and delicious ways.
The Neapolitan-style shop Pizzeria Faulisi has recently reopened after a weeks-long rebrand.
The restaurant is now Faulisi Caffe & Enoteca, shifting away from its signature wood-fired pizzas to a morning and afternoon cafe serving breakfast and lunch. Evening hours will be reserved for occasional wine dinners and private events.
“Personal things, business things, life happens, we’ve got to mix it up, and we’re excited about it,” co-owner Zach Faulisi said in an Instagram reel announcing the changes. “We get to do some really cool pastries in the mornings. The wood-fired oven becomes our playground for some really delicious things that we’re excited to make for breakfast and lunch. More sandwiches, more salads, more whatever we want that’s really delicious.”
Faulisi is owned by married couple Amber and Zach Faulisi, who announced the changes in a January Instagram post. The restaurant was closed from mid-January to the end of February when Faulisi Caffe & Enoteca was born. It remains in the same space at 215 E. Chatham St., Suite 101, in downtown Cary.
Faulisi Caffe & Enoteca is now open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., serving traditional pastries in the morning, like Sfogliatella and biscotti, and an espresso and coffee bar fueled by Black & White beans. The wood-burning oven will still make a couple classic Faulisi pies — a margherita pizza and the bianco e verde, a white pizza topped with arugula.
Weekend service will likely feature more pizza specials, the Faulisis said.
Other dishes include Faulisi’s famed gnocchi and salads and trifle-like Tiramisu.
In the announcement video, Zach Faulisi said the myriad of complicated reasons for the rebrand could take hours to explain, but staffing issues are the main driver.
“The simple yet complicated umbrella answer to why the change is labor issues,” the Faulisi team said in an email.
Creativity may be another reason. Both Amber and Zach Faulisi come from the world of New York fine dining, and even early on it was clear they wanted to push the boundaries of a traditional restaurant.
At the pizzeria, they experimented with sandwiches under the guise of the “Super Secret Sandwich Club,” they created a weekend morning bagel pop up, which grew so popular so quickly they created Big Dom’s Bagel Shop across the parking lot, building it in an old Little Caesar’s spot.
Safe to say they’re the only artisan bagel shop in the world baking in a repurposed conveyor belt oven.
“With our fine dining backgrounds, we feel like the past few years we haven’t been able to really do anything outside of pizza,” the Faulisis said in an email. “We are excited that we’ve had time to test out various dishes in our space to see what can work. We enjoy using as many seasonal ingredients as possible.”
In a 2017 feature on the Triangle’s Neapolitan-style scene, former News & Observer dining critic Greg Cox said Faulisi served some of the area’s best pizzas. But he also praised the gnocchi (still on the menu) and the charm.
“The kitchen is tiny, and the owners pretty much do all the cooking in this 21st century version of a mom and pop pizzeria,” Cox wrote.
That continues to be true in whatever form.
This story was originally published March 12, 2025 at 11:17 AM.
