&pizza is coming to College Park.
The popular D.C.-based fast casual pizza chain, which launched in 2012, will open in the coming months in the College Park Shopping Center at the corner of 7300 Baltimore Ave., the former location of GameStop.
It is the second &pizza on the Route 1 corridor, following one at the Mall at Prince Georges that opened in 2018, as D.C. chains like District Taco and SeoulSpice increasingly move into the area. It will be the 11th &pizza in Maryland.
The chain joins a crowded local pizza scene that includes rival fast casual chains Blaze Pizza and MOD Pizza at Riverdale Park Station. , not to mention more traditional sit-down pizzerias like Potomac Pizza and the soon-to-reopen Ledo Pizza.
Once dubbed “the pizza shop for the 21st century,” &pizza is notable for its high wages, with CEO Michael Lastoria saying that its $16-an-hour wage attracted more than 100 applications for every opening this year, which he said disproved other industry leaders’ claims of a labor shortage due to the pandemic.
“There isn’t a labor shortage, there is a shortage of business owners willing to pay a living wage,” he said.
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