What was Johnny T’s Brooklyn Pizzeria?
Johnny T’s Brooklyn Pizzeria was the second act of a strip-mall pizzeria that got famous too fast. Both acts played out at 7132 E Becker Lane, a small storefront on the northwest corner of Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard, in the Shea Corridor, between February 2024 and February 2026.
The first act was Andiamo Pizzeria, which opened in February 2024 as a small Italian pizza place and deli. Its founders described themselves as two pizza enthusiasts who had met in Phoenix after living and eating in many places, and the menu drew on New York, California and Italian styles; the name means “let’s go.” Neighbors on Nextdoor praised the pepperoni slice, the garlic knots, an artichoke starter and an egg-based carbonara, and it was BYOB while it waited on a liquor license.
Then, in April 2024, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy reviewed it on his One Bite series, and the shop went viral. Within days a neighbor reported a two-hour wait. In May, about three months after opening, Andiamo closed temporarily to add space, storage and staff, according to Mouth by Southwest. It never reopened.
The second act opened in December 2024. One of Andiamo’s owners relaunched the space as Johnny T’s Brooklyn Pizzeria, with New York-style pies and slices, calzones, stromboli, sandwiches and wings, and much the same menu as before. It lasted a little over a year. In February 2026 the owners said it would not reopen, citing labor costs, the cost of goods, rent and weak weekday business.
The two pizzerias shared an address, much of a menu and at least one owner, which is why we tell them as one story. Our verdict: the pizza was good enough to start a stampede, and the business never found a way to live between the stampede and an ordinary Tuesday.
What the menu was, and how people ate there
The pies. The two pizzas the press singled out at Johnny T’s were the White Guy, a white pie of mozzarella, fontina, Taleggio, whipped ricotta, shaved Parmigiano, garlic cream, black pepper, fresh basil and extra-virgin olive oil, and the Njuda, with mozzarella, spicy nduja salami, sweet pork sausage, whipped ricotta and basil. Both had been on Andiamo’s menu, which is why Mouth by Southwest described Johnny T’s menu as much the same as its predecessor’s.
Beyond pizza. Johnny T’s sold calzones, stromboli rolls, hot and cold sandwiches and wings, and was open for lunch and dinner daily. Andiamo had leaned more toward a deli and trattoria, with paninis, pastas such as the carbonara, garlic knots and the artichoke appetizer neighbors wrote about. The published record we found does not give prices for either menu, so we do not quote any.
The slice. The early reviews were about the slice. A neighbor who ate there in March 2024 called the pepperoni “one of the best pizza slices I have had in years,” and commenters under Portnoy’s review described a thin, crisp crust with a lot of flavor, though one found it floppy straight out of the oven and another called it overrated. That split is normal for any pizzeria that ends up on a viral review.
The crowd. After April 2024 the line was a mix of neighbors and pizza tourists who had seen the video. By the time Johnny T’s was open, the tourists had moved on. The owners’ own explanation for closing was that weekday business could not cover labor, food and rent, which suggests weekend nights were the only reliable ones.
Getting there. The storefront sat in a strip center at Scottsdale and Shea, with parking in the center lot. It shared the intersection with the former Razz’s space, which New Times reported had become Cat’s Pajamas Bistro in 2020.
The viral pizzeria that closed to grow
Andiamo’s story is one of the clearest examples Scottsdale has of what a single viral review can do to a small restaurant in the 2020s. It opened quietly in February 2024 in an ordinary strip center. Within two months it was the subject of a One Bite review, its wait had stretched to two hours, and its owner made the decision that shaped everything after: rather than run the line as it was, Andiamo closed in May to add space, storage and staff. One commenter under the review called it a bad decision. The restaurant did not reopen.
Seven months later the space came back as Johnny T’s, opened by one of Andiamo’s owners, with a new name, a Brooklyn theme and largely the same food. Phoenix Magazine listed it among the openings of December 2024 as a replacement for Andiamo, and Mouth by Southwest covered it the same month. The record we found does not name the owners or say why the partners split, and we have not filled that gap.
Johnny T’s closed in February 2026. Mouth by Southwest reported it on February 9, Phoenix Magazine listed it among February’s closings, and Phoenix New Times followed in early March, noting that it had lasted just over a year. All three quoted the same explanation from the owners’ social media: labor costs, higher costs of goods, high rent, and not enough weekday business to cover them. Their last line thanked customers and said they had enjoyed bringing a little of New York to Arizona. Nothing we found confirms what has taken the space since.
Honest assessment: the pizza was plainly good, good enough that a national reviewer and a lot of neighbors agreed. What went wrong was timing and rent. Andiamo closed at the moment it had the most customers it would ever have, and Johnny T’s reopened after the moment had passed, into the same costs of labor, food and rent the owners named on the way out. It belongs with the Shea Corridor places that were better than their run was long.