Grotto Pizza sold to longtime employees

Rehoboth Beach-based Grotto Pizza has been sold to four employees who have more than 100 years of experience with the company.

The process started last year, but the contract was signed in early 2025, said Grotto Pizza President Jeff Gosnear, who has been working at Grotto since 2002, was named president in 2023 and is now the majority owner of the company.

COO Adam Webster, who began with Grotto Pizza in the late 1980s, is the other large investor, said Gosnear. There are two minority owners who have about five decades of experience, he said.

Dominick Pulieri founded Grotto Pizza in 1960 at the age of 17, with his sister Mary Jean and her husband Joseph Paglianite.

Pulieri is now 83, and he always wanted Grotto to be a generational business, but he never married, didn’t have children or have extended family members interested, said Gosnear. It was time to make the transition, and Puliero wanted to ensure it stayed in the hands of people with the same ideas, values and work ethic, he said.

There wasn’t a big announcement because nothing really changed, said Gosnear. The contract was signed in the morning and then it was back to work in the office that afternoon, he said.

There are 22 Grotto Pizza locations in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, two mobile units and two satellite facilities.

Across the Cape Region, the company has been involved with the redevelopment of old properties and the development of new buildings over the past few years – there’s the new corporate office on Route 1, a new restaurant in Dewey Beach, a new mixed-use structure in Dewey Beach, the renovation of Grand Slam outside Lewes, and the pending development of the One Rehoboth Hotel on the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk.

In the years before COVID, the company was expanding by one to two restaurants every year, said Gosnear. When COVID hit, he said, the company decided to pull back on expansion to ensure the existing buildings were in good working order.

“It’s a strong company, but it’s also 65 years old,” said Gosnear. “Part of the long-range plan was making sure the older buildings were in shape before the transition.”

Gosnear assured customers there are no plans to change the menu, especially the famous swirl on top of the pizza. The biggest change is the footprint size of new restaurants, said Gosnear. The oldest buildings are huge, coming in at 10,000 to 12,000 square feet, while the new ones are 5,000 square feet, he said.

There’s always been a good delivery and carry-out business, but it’s really picked up over the past few years, which means dining areas can be smaller, said Gosnear. 

Looking forward, Gosnear said he expects to open a new location in Lancaster, Pa., in the next year. The company has pretty much saturated the market in Delaware, and right now, the business environment looks stronger in southern Pennsylvania, from Lancaster to Hanover, than it does in Maryland, he said.