Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Ben Hoover, who with his wife, Emily, co-own Franky’s Pizza & Delicatessen, stands outside the shop on Scott Street NE in Warren that since opening has received tremendous support from the community.

WARREN — The moment Ben Hoover stepped inside the vacant building at 125 Scott St. NE downtown, he said he instantly knew it was where he would launch his restaurant.

“In my mind, it had always been a little neighborhood corner pizza shop,” Hoover said. “That had always been the idea and when I came here, I was like, it’s perfect and the floodgates were opened.”

And now about 18 months later — a period that included a top-to-bottom renovation of the building’s first floor and meticulous planning of the kitchen and menu — Franky’s Pizza & Delicatessen is serving a community hungry for scratch-made pizza pies and deli sandwiches.

If Hoover’s last name is familiar, it should be. His is the family who owns and operates Cockeye BBQ and Cockeye Creamery on Warren’s west side. The family that also includes dad Erik, mom Stacey and brother Max, run the restaurant group named The Monday Dinner Project.

GETTING HIS START

The whole thing started as a “COVID obsession,” said Ben, who was attending the Culinary Institute of America in New York when the pandemic started. Because of it, the school closed, causing Ben, who was close to graduating, to return home to work in the kitchen at Cockeye BBQ until the pandemic caused it to close, too.

“So everyday, I just started making pizzas just for fun,” to pass the time, but also with the intent of a pizza shop in the back of his mind.

“It was just sort of an obsession that got a hold of me and I couldn’t stop tinkering with it,” he said.

He continued to make pizzas and he started to acquire more equipment. In the meantime, the restaurant group had been looking to expand. That, plus being introduced to the building and that his food was well-received by those who ate it, he doubled down and the pizza and deli concept.

“There’s no reason not to now,” he said of the decision to move on the pizza shop and delicatessen.

SCOTT STREET

SL Hoover SLC acquired the building, the former Warren Tile & Floor, in June 2023. Making the introduction was Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership.

“This building had been vacant since the late ’90s. It hadn’t been anything. It was never food service,” Ben said. “It was just so perfect for what we were looking for.”

The two-story building was built in 1952 to be the flooring store, said Ben, according to what he learned from the grandson of the former owner.

The first floor is about 1,400 square feet, most of which is occupied by the kitchen. The second floor, meanwhile, remains unrenovated, but the plan is to improve the space for storage.

“In here,” Ben, 25, said standing in the kitchen, “there were cracked concrete floors and block walls, so there was nothing in here at all.” The full renovation included new trench drains, new drywall and a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

“It was pretty cool to have a blank slate to do exactly what you wanted, but it was a top-to-bottom full renovation,” Ben said.

In addition, the kitchen was outfitted with all new, custom-made equipment. In fact, the ovens were made in Dunbar, Pa., a town southeast of Pittsburgh.

GETTING TO WORK

Ben said the shop, which is open Wednesday to Sunday, makes about 350 pizzas and about 150 deli-style sandwiches per day.

The menu items are mostly scratch-made, from the bread to domestic meats like ham, turkey and roast beef to the sauce and dressings. Other meats, like Mortadella, Capicola, Prosciutto and salami are bought, but there are plans to start making those in-house, too, starting with Capicola and Mortadella.

The carry-out only store opens at 11 a.m. and stays open until the food runs out, usually around 5 p.m. That’s something that has caused a bit of a learning curve for customers, and something Ben said will be overcome as the business matures.

“When I opened, I built it with an idea of what I wanted to do, and I built the infrastructure to do double. Right now, we’re at triple what I anticipated, so we’re starting to bust out at the seams,” Ben said.

He has a staff of four full-time bakers working about 60 hours a week. It takes about 24 hours to produce the dough needed for the sandwiches and pizzas.

“There is a lot of time and a lot of touching, and the pie is very tall. It’s tall, but light and crispy, and that is a process of proofing and stretching over time. It’s not something I can just whip up like that,” Ben said, snapping his fingers.

A catch at the moment, is the pans he uses.

“The big issue, the talk of the town, has been that I keep selling out constantly. I sell out every day, and it’s because of these,” Ben said, tapping one of the anodized carbon steel pans used to make the pizzas.

“It’s sort of a very specific thing produced by a family company in Spokane, Washington. They are a small company and just make a very specific thing for the two sizes I use, so the issue is I need a lot more of these to keep up with production,” Ben said.

“My fermentation process requires them (the dough) to be stretched in the pans over the course of about eight hours, so I only get one use out of them per day, so I can’t flip the pans over and over again,” he said. “I keep buying everything they have in stock and they are making more.”

“I wish I could get a shortcut, but I can’t … I don’t want one,” he said.

Producing more than 350 pies a day is doable, but it puts a crunch on space and also risks overworking his staff and ovens.

The store employs about 18 people full time. Ben said he plans to increase that to about 25.

FAMILY CONNECTION

Ben said he’s interested to see if Franky’s is in the honeymoon phase and how it will last.

But unlike some other new restaurants, this one has the benefit of being connected to two established and well-liked restaurants — Cockeye BBQ and Cockeye Creamery.

“The Cockeye army rides hard. We spent 10 years building our relationships in the community and that sort of transferred over here into this as well,” Ben said.

The pizza parlor and deli is Ben’s concept, much like Cockeye Creamery was his brother Max’s.

“He (Max) threw his dart and it stuck. This was my opportunity to throw my dart and it’s feeling like it’s sticking,” Ben said.

There is some collaboration between the restaurants. One pie on Ben’s menu is called the Westsider, a brisket pizza that uses brisket and sauce by Cockeye BBQ. Also, Max created a line of Italian ices that are co-branded with Cockeye Creamery and Franky’s.

In addition, Franky’s employs some of the folks who worked at Cockeye BBQ. In fact, the kitchen manager is Jesse Ruiz, who started as a cook at Cockeye BBQ.

Ben co-owns Franky’s — named after his grandfather, Ben’s dad’s dad — with his wife, Emily. She manages the front of the house and previously managed the creamery.

“I couldn’t do it without her, she is fantastic,” Ben said.