Orange Couple Are Back In The Pizza Business After 9 years

ORANGE, CT — Pizza has been a big part of Michael and Christine Avena's lives. Still, after leaving the pizza business behind, they saw an opportunity to return and make it a big part of their lives again.

Michael and Christine are the owners of We’re Back Pizza, 106 Boston Post Road.

The Orange Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting event for We're Back Pizza on Tuesday, May 16.

During the ribbon cutting, the eatery gave out free slices of cheese pizza for everyone who attended the ribbon cutting event. There were many smiles among the people eating pizza.

“This place was originally Abates Pizza, we opened it in 2011, and we managed it from 2011 to 2019,” Michael said. “After 2019, we left, and Abates sold.”

“We were the face of Abates. So many people thought we were the owners, but we were just the managers,” Christine said.

Michael said that when they heard the location was again up for sale and available, they decided to jump back into the pizza business, where the name We’re Back Pizza was established.

“This was our life for nine years, and when we had the opportunity to return, we jumped at it,” Michael said.

We’re Back Pizza has been open for a couple of weeks, and Michael said the feedback has been positive.

“We’ve had much traffic, and we’ve had much positive feedback from customers in West Haven and Orange, and they’ve told us they are thrilled that we are back,” he said. “When we left Abates, so did the customers, and now that we’re back, hopefully, they will all come back.”

Christine said they had seen many of their regular customers from many years ago walk into the door of We’re Back Pizza.

“It’s awesome,” she said. “They have a big smile on their face, and we have a big smile on our face.”