Arlington native and Paisano’s Pizza founder Fouad Qreitem learned a lot working in his father’s high-end Annandale restaurant, The Black Orchid. But the biggest lesson was that fine dining wasn’t for him.
“I started working there at 10 years old, making coffee. Then I moved to the coat room, and I worked my way up. When I left there, when he sold the business [in 1997, after a 27-year run], I was a maître d’,” says Qreitem, who grew up near Tuckahoe Park. “It was very demanding, very almost like bougie. I was not a big fan of that type of business.”
Still, he wanted to stay in the food industry—just more casually.
“I said to myself, ‘What can I do to provide good food but deliver it to your house, rather than you come in and dine in?'” the 51-year-old says. “And that’s how Paisano’s was born.”
Qreitem opened the first pizza shop in June 1998 in Fairfax’s Shoppes at Fair Lakes. Today, there are 40 Paisano’s locations—both corporate- and franchise-owned—across the DMV. In 2023, the company became the official pizza provider for the Washington Commanders, although the two have been working together since 2018, when Paisano’s ousted Papa John’s at FedEx Field. (The stadium was renamed Northwest Stadium last February.)
“I’m a lifelong fan. I remember growing up and going to RFK [Stadium] and then taking my kids to FedEx Field, so it’s been a lifelong dream to work with the team,” says Qreitem, who now lives in Clifton. “It’s my dream come true to be a partner of the Commanders.”
In honor of the team’s NFC championship game Jan. 26 against the Philadelphia Eagles, which could put them in the Super Bowl, the restaurant is flashing back to the last time Washington’s football team won the Super Bowl in 1991, offering a large cheese pizza and 12 boneless wings for $19.91.
And if the Commanders become the national champs? “We’re going to give away free pizzas the day after the Super Bowl, all day in all locations,” Qreitem says.
But the partnership means more to him than bragging and advertising rights. Paisano’s and the Commanders host many charitable events together, including serving food to underserved communities through the Paisano’s food truck and bringing gifts to hospitalized children.
That community involvement is one reason the restaurant has successful, Qreitem adds.
“We’re smart enough to know that if it wasn’t for our community, we would not be in business, so we just keep giving back to the community,” he says. “We get involved in every way we can, and we when we see somebody in need or in trouble, we jump in to help.”
In November, Paisano’s raised $20,000 to support Inova Children’s and the Inova Schar Cancer Institute. The restaurant is also a supporter of local law enforcement. Last summer, it supported the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office’s “Shop with a Sheriff” program, an annual event that provides pizza parties and back-to-school shopping sprees for children.
At the heart, though, is a reliable product, Qreitem says. About 25 menu items, ranging from pizzas and pastas to sandwiches, have not changed in the restaurant’s nearly three decades. That doesn’t mean he isn’t tuned into food industry trends, though.
“The generation today is very smart. They have a lot of technology at their fingertips, so people know what they’re eating,” he says. Paisano’s makes its pizza dough daily from scratch. Qreitem is launching a Go Fresh campaign to highlight that food is prepared to order using ingredients such as fresh (not pre-cooked) chicken and mozzarella cheese from certified cheese makers in Wisconsin.
“We’re going to get rid of anything we believe is not healthy,” he says, such as seed oils, which lately have come under scrutiny on social media, although medical experts say they’re safe.
Qreitem is also preparing to shutter his original pizza shop in Fairfax and open a new one in May half a mile away at 12595 Fair Lakes Circle. That location will have a larger footprint and offer fast-casual, dine-in seating, although Qreitem says delivery is still the core of Paisano’s business model.
He’s hoping to deliver a lot of pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday.
Find Paisano’s Pizza in Arlington at 3650 S. Glebe Road (National Landing) and 2201 N. Pershing Drive (Lyon Park), in Falls Church at 5874 Crossroads Center Way (Baileys Crossroads) and 244 W. Broad St., and in Tysons at 8603 Westwood Center Drive.