Camporosso Wood Fired Pizzeria is Pizza Today’s 2024 Pizzeria of the Year
Spirit of Giving
Our 2024 Pizzeria of the Year has impressive record of philanthropy
Eric Redfield sat inside the dining room of his pizzeria as our staff buzzed around snapping photos and taking video. A bit emotional from the big news Pizza Today had just bestowed upon his shop, he reflected on what our editors told him about being impressed by his record of giving back to his community in Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky. The night before, he and his wife, Amy — along with their staff — hosted a charity event to raise funding for cancer research. This is commonplace for the couple. Since the inception of their pizza-fueled labor of love, the Redfields have used their business profits to do extensive and lasting good in their community. It’s become more than a passion — it’s a mandate.
And that’s but one reason Camporosso Wood Fired Pizzeria has been named Pizza Today’s 2024 Pizzeria of the Year.
Three popular pizzas — Sopressata Hot Honey, Margherita and the Prosciutto and Fig — at Camporosso Wood Fired Pizzeria in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Photo by Josh Keown.
The spirit of giving began on day one.
After a successful corporate career that spanned three decades, Eric and Amy decided to go all-in on this passion project and open their pizzeria. (Their origin story, as well as menu offerings, were detailed well by our very own Denise Greer when she visited Camporosso and wrote about the business back in 2019, so we’ll skip that here). The couple opened shop in an old building that had previously housed a garage for years and went to work building their dream. From the start, the focus was on making their restaurant the best place to work in Ft. Mitchell.
“Employee satisfaction is number one,” says Eric. “Everything else will follow after that. So, we were determined to create a great work environment with a dynamic culture. It’s fun.”
The Redfields knew they wanted to generate employee satisfaction through generosity. It’s hardwired into their ethos.
“It started when we first opened,” Eric recalls. “We offered group health and dental. We offer a matching 401K. We offer 100 percent of the first six percent that these employees contribute. I have 10 employees that are in the 401K program. Six of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever invested a dollar. And I have four people on our group health. It’s the first time two of them have ever had insurance. So that matters. That means something.
“We started with 15 employees. We have six that are still with us eight years later. Our running average since we’ve been open is 10-percent turnover per year. That’s unheard of. This doesn’t happen if I don’t have employees that stay and have a sense of purpose that they can grow here.”
During the COVID shutdown in 2020, the couple took things to new heights.
“For a period of time, Amy and I decided that we were going to give 100 percent of our profits to our employees. So that’s what we did: we gave 100 percent of our profits to our employees. We distributed about $60,000 to our employees over that period between what we gave and then, when the community found out, they started donating to it, too. It was really amazing to see.”
Photo Collage includes owners Eric and Amy Redfield, along with staff making pizzas at Camporosso Wood Fired Pizzeria in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Photos by Josh Keown.
On our first visit to Camporosso, the dining room
— outfitted with a wood-burning oven to churn out Neapolitan pies — was responsible for the lion’s share of sales. While patrons may take leftovers home or sporadically call in a to-go order at that time, the focus was entirely on the dine-in experience.
“We didn’t even have a contract for pizza boxes,” Eric quips.
The pandemic changed that overnight, forcing the Redfields to navigate an unexpected new business landscape. That’s when a night-long planning session led to a migration to takeout. While the restaurant has since returned to its roots by focusing on providing a stellar dine-in experience, to-go orders have remained a permanent fixture that has helped grow revenue.
“I don’t think Neapolitan pizza travels well, but the community embraced it,” Eric says of the necessary buildout of to-go systems Camporosso put into place.
“I remember Amy and I saying, ‘We’re going to have to go to a takeout model.’ And we were dine-in only, so we didn’t have that model. We said, ‘How do we do this? How do we transition to takeout only and survive?’ We didn’t know what we were up against. Nobody did.
“But we figured it out and we reopened takeout only the very next day and never skipped a beat. And during the time that we were takeout only, I made a commitment as the owner to meet every customer that came and picked up food from us. I gave them a fist bump and I met every customer. And that really resonated with the community. And, in turn, we did not lay off one employee during the Covid shutdown.”
That dedication to literally meet every customer comes as no surprise once you get to know the Redfields a bit. It is who they are. And the result has been a tide of community support because people like supporting good people.
Camporosso’s Carryout Catapults the Business
The additional carryout revenue ultimately helped catapult Camporosso to a new level. Sales last year were well over $3 million out of one unit. Meanwhile, Eric and Amy astutely kept the momentum going once dine-in reopened by doubling down on staffing. They brought in a dedicated phone person to take carryout orders. They briefly — very briefly — added online ordering. But as orders poured in and taxed the kitchen staff, it was time to step back and focus on quality.
“We tried it for two hours,” Eric laughs. “It overwhelmed us and so we turned it off. My pizza chef came to me and said, ‘If I just fill the orders we have from online, and we base it on our turn time, we’ll be filling these orders until 2:30 in the morning.’
“They just kept coming. Plus, people were calling as well, so it was just too much. We’ll never go back to that. We get some negative social media comments about stepping into 2010 since it’s now 2024, but we’ll never do online ordering again. There’s only so much capacity we can do and keep the quality we want. And quality is very important to me.”
The open kitchen with views of the ovens is a showpiece of the dining experience at Camporosso Wood Fired Pizzeria in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Photo by Josh Keown.
That mindset is also why Camporosso won’t grow to a second unit and beyond.
At this point in the Redfields’ careers, it’s not about ballooning the bank account. It’s about building up others around them.
“I hear it every day,” says Eric. “Venture capital approaches me all the time and says ‘You should add a store in Newport. You should put one in Louisville. You should franchise.’
“I will never, ever, ever be complacent and will continue to grow this business. We’re satisfied, but not complacent. But we love what we’re doing here in these four walls. It keeps me smiling and it keeps Amy smiling. We have a dynamic business that is rooted in our employees, in the customer experience, in the community and in our food. We are able to stay laser-focused on these four tenets. If we became too ambitious and looked to grow, we’d lose focus on that because I’m not there or Amy’s not there. We are happy with what we have and don’t need more.”
With 12 full-time employees and 50 total staff members, Camporosso clearly has become a foodservice employer of choice in Northern Kentucky. The business’ 2023 payroll exceeded $1 million.
“We didn’t do $1 million in revenue in our first year, and now our payroll is that,” says Eric. “We haven’t lost a full-time employee in four years, and we’re proud of that. We employ single moms, single dads, 20-year-olds. It’s so gratifying to see young people who have never heard of 401Ks tracking their investments on their phones and planning for their futures. I had a corporate job for 30 years and I can sit here and say I’ve never had a bad day in the restaurant. Never one bad day.”
Jeremy White is Editor-in-Chief of Pizza Today.
Camporosso Wood Fired Pizzeria Pizzeria of the Year honor receives national media attention
Since we announced Wood Fired Pizzeria, Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky as our Pizza Today 2024 Pizzeria of the year, the designation has received a number of national media stories. Check out a few of the media outlets spotlighting 2024 Pizzeria of the Year Wood Fired Pizzeria, Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky:
Cincinnati Enquirer: Pizza Today magazine names NKY spot Pizzeria of the Year
LINK NKY: Ft. Mitchell’s Camporosso named 2024 Pizzeria of the Year
Who are past recipients of Pizza Today’s Pizzeria of the Year?
Pizza Today, a leading B2B pizza industry publication, began the prestigious award many years ago go. Let’s look at the most recent recipients of Pizza Today’s Pizzeria of the Year:
2023 Pizzeria of the Year: Modern Apizza, New Haven, Connecticut
2022 Pizzeria of the Year: Tony’s Pizzeria Napoletana, San Francisco, CA
2021 Pizzeria of the Year: Razza, Jersey City, NJ
