DVE news crew interviews the ‘Goodfella’s’

One morning DVE-News/TV reporters set out to interview the owners of Goodfella’s Pizza in Matamoras, Carl and Karen Braunagel, and manager Anthony Tuccillo. Karen offered to demonstrate how a pizza was made before the crew had lunch. The reporters watched carefully as they were shown how to make a “party size” pizza. Wow, 26” of delicious pizza! The crew then set out to the banquet room to eat when in walked Mr. Carl Braunagel. They quickly got set up for the interview.

The most popular pizza topping is pepperoni. Karen claims the least favorite is mushroom. When asked what happens to a burnt or well done pizza, the reporters were told if it was really burned, they throw it out. Otherwise, food is given to the homeless or the needy people of the area. The most complimented dish they have is fettucine alfredo and chicken parmesan. The longest dish to prepare is seafood Diavolo. The most expensive dishes to make involve seafood. They have made pizzas with bbq sauce. They’ve also made “sweet” pizzas or “dessert” pizzas. Some are made with marshmallows, Nutella, Oreos, Reeses, peanut butter, and whipped cream. They will basically make anything you want. They decide what to put on a daily special depending on the time of year, the season, the holiday or what they have left over. For example, on St. Patrick’s Day they made corned beef and cabbage pizza. During Lent, they offer seafood pizzas.

What they love most about the restaurant are the customers and employees. If they had unlimited resources they would expand the restaurant, especially the banquet room. The most difficult part of running a restaurant would be the employees. They want good employees so in turn they would give better customer service and have more return customers. The only mistake they could think of regarding the restaurant would be the size of the restaurant, so they had expanded next door. In fact, they are planning on replacing some of the windows in the banquet room to garage doors, so they can have an open patio.

They didn’t always want to own or manage a restaurant. Carl is the owner and pharmacist of Aliton’s and Karen is a certified nurse’s assistant. Tuccillo has a bachelor’s degree in business administration. No one else in their family has been in the food industry.

Goodfella’s has been around since June 2016. Their favorite pizza is the chicken teriyaki pizza, and meal is the penne vodka. When asked if they have special ingredients to make everything taste and smell so good, they said it’s a secret. They love their jobs and making people happy, there’s nothing like seeing people with smiles on their faces and returning again.

Carl said he originally opened the pizza shop to help the needy. He had just returned from a mission to help the needy and homeless. He had been in Africa and Haiti and wanted to make a difference. So that’s how he started his business. His sister told him that he and friends are good guys with all the good things they were doing, and it dawned on them that they should call the restaurant Goodfella’s.

DVE reporters Lili Mang, Jodie Harrison, Clara Clarke, Keston Monahan, Mikayla Hickey, Sadie Martine, Stephon Petrakian, and Adelyn Gamer contributed to this article.