Harry’s Pizza Returns Stronger After Fire

On Jan. 9, at Harry’s Pizza and Subs, a raging fire started above the oven hood pipes and dropped down to ignite the grease. The staff called the fire department, but the fire had spread into the ceiling area. Overall, it was contained to the kitchen and ceiling with no damage to the dining room.

Co-owner Ilene Kapper Oxman stated, “Re-building was tough, due to high costs of mitigation services, we ended up doing a lot of it ourselves, with help from some of our close family, friends, and customers who spent hours scrubbing, pressure washing and doing anything to help us out. We had to replace our oven hood, do quite a bit of work to the electrical, AC and up in the ceiling as well. Thanks to our amazing handyman of many years who came from North Carolina.”

Further misfortune found that the insurance company was not stepping up due to a documentation error. Luckily, daughter, Aly, an attorney, wouldn’t take “no” for an answer from the insurance company and was able to get them to settle and get a payout that helped towards getting re-opened.

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The kitchen fire started in the oven hood.

Oxman said, “The real help came from our amazing friends, customers and family who donated to our GoFundMe, first helping us pay our employees, and then allowing us to rebuild and get back open. We are lucky to have such a strong community here that supports us and wants us succeed.”

Located on Powers Ferry Road just off Akers Mill, Harry’s (named for Rich’s dad) has re-opened and is getting the menu “back to normal.” They have new oven hoods, which will be kept up with maintenance and cleaning. Harry’s was open and operating for 30 years before the fire.

Husband and co-owner Rich was able to retain some loyal staff who are helping recruit new employees. Some of the staff moved on. The family works as a team. Rich started the restaurant, but he has been stepping back a bit. Ilene’s son, Garrett Kapper, has taken on a huge role in the re-opening and rebuild. He and Ilene run the front of the house during the week for lunch with regular customers. Aly helps out behind the scenes with legal and business operations. Ilene said, “Everyone knows and loves Rich and enjoys seeing him around the restaurant.”

Catering, especially during weekdays, is a large segment of the business; and they are communicating with favorite companies about the reopening. Harry’s provides catering to hundreds of businesses in the Powers Ferry/Galleria/Battery area, and they hope word of mouth will spread that they are back. They use Grubhub and UberEATS for smaller deliveries and deliver themselves for larger orders.

Daughter and attorney Aly Kapper fought the insurance company to settle. She grew up doing homework in this dining room.

When asked what makes a great pizza, Rich stated, “Having the perfect dough, great sauce and cheese, really. That’s all there is to it, and over the 30 years of our business, we have perfected it. We serve delicious New York-style pizza, and other items like salads, wings, sub sandwiches, calzones. We have our famous specials of a slice, six wings and a drink for $12.99 … two slices of pizza and drink for $7.99 which everyone loves.”

New York-style crust is thin and crispy. The sauce and dough are made from scratch in-house. Some of their popular sandwiches are steak and cheese, jerk chicken, Philly, and chicken parmesan. With summer coming up, salads are always a good option. There are also vegetarian choices.

Long Island native Ilene also runs REUNION: Kitchen and Bar on Johnson Ferry Road for dinner service. She concluded, “Memories are of the kids doing homework right here on the tables a decade ago. This business will stay in our family as Garrett is in line to take the helm.”

Harry’s is located at 2150 Powers Ferry and closes at 9 p.m. 770-955 4413. Open seven days per week. Trivia is at 7 p.m. on Thursday nights.

Remember The Beatles’ tune, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”