There’s really no reason for Fredi Bello to love sports. In fact, he should either be altogether indifferent to sports or even hold them in contempt because he never got to participate.
But Bello adores sports and owes his wild success running Fredi the PizzaMan, his renowned pizzeria in Melvindale, to a bit of happenstance that involved Lions receiver Herman Moore and his love of golf.
Long before he opened Fredi’s on Sept. 6, 2006, and longer still before Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy made him a pizza rock star with his “one-bite” review in 2021, Bello was a kid being raised by hard-working Italian immigrants in 1970s and ’80s Dearborn.
When Fredi asked if he could play sports with his friends, he got a simple answer from his father, Fred.
“My father told me, ‘Your friends are stupid. You got to come to work,’” said Bello, 56.
So he did.
While his friends were throwing baseballs and learning football formations, Bello started the pizza game at age 11 in his dad’s restaurant, Bello’s Pizzeria, on Michigan and Beach Daily in Inkster.
Steadily, Bello’s apprenticeship took him from cleaning and restocking to making pizza. But he gleaned something else at his dad’s pizzeria. Bello’s lifelong fascination with sports, and particularly Detroit’s pro teams, took hold as he watched games on the pizzeria’s television.
“My memories were always in the back room late at night, watching ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and the Detroit Lions and the Tigers,” he said. “I was there when Gibby hit the home run in '84. I was working that night. I was there watching that. My favorite World Series, 1986, Mets-Boston.’”
Bello says he has a photographic memory. Especially when it comes to sports and pizza. It’s fitting that so many of his fondest memories are inextricably linked between pizza and sports, including his first memory of doing real work in his dad’s restaurant.
“I remember watching the '79 [season] Super Bowl – Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers – and I answered the phone that day,” said Bello, who was 9 when he caught glimpses of the game on a 6-inch, black-and-white TV in the back room. “One of the first times I answered the phone to take an order for my dad.”
When Kirk Gibson homered off Goose Gossage in the ’84 World Series, Bello was standing in front of his dad's deep fryer, dunking chicken.
When Mookie Wilson’s grounder went between Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox, he was at his dad's pizzeria, bringing a pizza to a table when he saw the play on the TV.
Fate, and the Lions, play a hand
If you walk into Bello’s pizzeria, two things are obvious: He loves Detroit sports and he loves his Italian heritage.
Pictures and memorabilia adorn almost every inch of wall space in the dining room, restroom and kitchen. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and “The Sopranos” get equal billing with Gibson, David Montgomery and a Silverdome seatback signed by Eddie Murray.
Fredi’s is located just 2 ½ miles from the Lions’ practice facility in Allen Park, but it’s much closer as the crow flies. The store’s proximity to his favorite team is a coincidence, but maybe there’s also a little cosmic fate at play.
Before Bello opened Fredi the PizzaMan, he had another restaurant: Bello’s Pizzeria in Dearborn Heights, which he owned and operated from 1991 to 2003. Bello mimicked his dad’s full-service restaurant. There were long hours. He stayed open sometimes until 3 a.m. on weekends. There was an extensive menu. The phone rang incessantly with rude customers on the other end. Delivery drivers’ cars broke down.
Bello was successful, but he was still a young man. But after more than a decade of constant work, plus a busy social life, he needed a change.
“I came to a crossroads,” he said. “I wasn't married, didn't have kids. I said, 'I'm gonna sell the place.'”
Three months later, in May 2003, he sold it to a woman who had worked at a Cinnabon franchise owned by former Lions receiver Herman Moore.
Suddenly it all stopped. It didn’t take long for Bello to question what he had done. He even said he fell into “a deep depression.”
“What the hell did I do?” he said. “Why did I do this? So what I did was I started doing things I never did before. I started golfing every day.”
He found solace in the game’s challenge and quiet reprieve. Then he took care of his body and got into the best shape of his life when started hot yoga at a Plymouth studio.
But the real salvation came from one of his Detroit sports team. In the fall 2003, Bello did something he’d never had time to do. He stayed home and watched every game of the Pistons’ Goin’ to Work team that won the NBA championship that season.
“I fell in love with Ben Wallace and that team,” he said. “And that was like kind of my bridge from being depressed, being my own boss to three years I didn't work for anybody.”
Fredi goes back to work
Perhaps on the wings of the Pistons’ inspiration, Bello decided it was time for him to get back to goin’ to work, too.
Sports led him to the perfect location. While Bello was hitting golf balls at a nearby driving range, he saw the property where Fredi’s now sits. It’s about a mile from the Ford Rouge Plant – so close you can see the giant smokestacks. That meant the store would have a steady stream of lunchtime business.
But Fredi’s wasn’t always Fredi’s. When he first opened it, Bello called it Dinners Express and followed a similar plan to that of a popular chain restaurant.
“So basically we had meatloaf here, country fried steak,” he said. “We had liver and onions, we had pork chops, all ready to go quick, and basically Boston Market.”
He originally had a partner who owned three Coney Islands. They had a plan to open several restaurants. Then Bello had a moment of clarity.
“Business was great, fantastic,” he said. “Then a year into it, I went, ‘What the [heck] am I doing making pork chops and [stuff] like that, cleaning the grill?
“I make pizza. So I had the pizza oven. Started making pizza.”
The menu got pared down drastically and Bello focused on what he knew best. In 2013, he changed the name and Fredi the PizzaMan was born.
“I had a lot of pissed off people,” he said, “but I really believed in what I was doing. I wanted to do pizza. I just wanted to do pizza.”
Something else also changed: There would be no phones. Just walk-in orders deli style. Come in, pull a ticket and wait to place your order.
Fredi’s opens at 10:30 a.m., and when Bello runs out of dough balls, he posts it on his X account and the store closes soon after. He usually closes around 5 p.m., but it’s not uncommon for him to close at 2:30 p.m. on a busy summer day.
The most important ingredient
If there’s a secret to Bello’s pizza, it’s him.
He has a small staff, but he makes every pizza. Every pizza. He takes a dough ball from a container, tosses it and stretches it onto a pizza peel, known as a “board” in the business.
Then he adds sauce and maybe a few toppings before he hands it off to get dressed with more toppings. When it’s ready, he slides it into the oven, where he monitors several at once. He averages 325 pizzas over seven or eight hours.
Bello mainly makes what he calls New York-New Haven style pizza, which is a thin, crispy crust that’s a little charred. And if there’s another secret to what makes his pizza so good, it’s his dough.
Listening to Bello discuss the intricacies of making dough is like listening to Ted Williams explain his approach to batting or having Bill Walsh diagram a football play. It’s deep.
“I love the dough,” he said. “Even though I've been making dough 45 years, I'm still watching YouTube videos every day. I'm still reading up on it. I'm still tweaking it all the time. I just love the dough process.”
Bello says the dough requires five ingredients. The first four are easy: flour, water, salt and yeast. The fifth isn’t easy and it’s the key: time.
“It's the time after it's mixed is when the greatness comes out,” he said. “And I've never been taught how to make bread and dough. I'm self-taught.”
Bello lets the dough ferment for a day or two. That’s when the natural sugars of the yeast spread through the dough. It might take a third day before it’s ready.
“That's where you get your air, your crispiness,” he said, “and it's so light.”
Even when the pizza is done and in the box, with all the cheese and toppings, the entire box is extremely light. You might think someone had already eaten half the pizza if you didn’t know better.
Portnoy crowns the PizzaMan
Fredi the PizzaMan was doing very well after 14 years. Then Jan. 28, 2021, happened. Portnoy, a University of Michigan graduate and influential donor and supporter of the athletics program, showed up.
“I didn't know much about Barstool at the time,” Bello said, “other than I saw some of the pizza videos. And the only way I knew he was here is people were tagging me [on social media] and saying, 'You've got to go to Fredi’s before you leave Detroit.”
Bello saw that Portnoy was visiting other pizzerias around Michigan, but he didn’t think he would show up in Melvindale. Until he did.
Portnoy films a short video outside the pizzerias he visits around the country. He’s reviewed more than 1,100 spots that range from iconic legends in New York to 7-Elevens and Amtrak stations.
He rates pizzas on a 1-10 scale. Only one, Monte’s Restaurant in Lynn, MA, has gotten a 10. Only 23 have gotten a 9 or better. Fredi the PizzaMan got an 8.7, which places it among the top 38 and in the 97th percentile. The next-closest Michigan pizzeria in the ratings is Detroit Style Pizza Company in St. Clair Shores, which got an 8.1.
Portnoy was effusive and unequivocal in his praise of Bello’s pizza.
“This is undoubtedly the best pizza in Detroit," he said in his video review. “Not even close. I found it. This is the best pizza in Detroit. Period. Fredi the PizzaMan. Bar none. Hands down. Now I don't know if you like Detroit style. I don't care what style. This is the best pizza in Detroit. Period. End of story.”
Portnoy told Bello it was an 8.7. Then nothing happened for days. Portnoy posted short video reviews of his other Michigan stops.
Then, on Feb. 8, Portnoy’s review of Fredi’s posted around 6 p.m. It was 9 minutes long. The next day was National Pizza Day. It was like Santa endorsing one specific toy on Christmas Eve.
The hysteria started. Bello’s phone began blowing up. Someone showed up within an hour and was taking photos outside the restaurant. The media requests started flooding in, which whipped up the frenzy even more.
Bello knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand, so he pivoted and started selling only slices. Cars were lined up down the street. People started pitching tents in the parking lot and camping out. One person emailed Bello offering him $5,000 if he could be first in line.
The mania went on for months. Bello worked feverishly. He had a banana in the morning and didn’t eat again until he got home. He lost 30 pounds the first two months.
Great boost for a good cause
Business was booming. But what surprised Bello even more was the donations that started flooding in for the Fredi the PizzaMan Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit he started after his son, Antonio, was diagnosed with autism.
Portnoy was taken with the foundation and mentioned it in the video, which has gotten 1.3 million views since its posting. For more than a day after the review came out, Bello’s phone alerts kept chiming with all the donations that were coming in at Fredithepizzaman.com.
“It was my PayPal for my foundation,” he said. “I did like 30 grand in a day. Oh, my God! Donations. Wow. It wouldn't stop.”
Since his foundation’s inception, Bello has raised enough money to donate more than $180,000 in equipment, scholarships and sensory spaces at Breslin Center, Ford Field and more than 120 primary and secondary schools in Michigan.
Bello also has two daughters, and he honors each of his children by holding them closely in the form of pens – one blue and two pink – that he carries on the fresh apron he wears every day.
‘He ruined us’
During a visit on a random Thursday in early September, after the summer rush has finished, Fredi the PizzaMan is still packed for lunch.
Most are regulars and know the drill. Pull a ticket, place your order, wait, then sit elbow to elbow in the bursting dining room in order to do one of the things that makes humans truly happy: eating good food they love.
David Chernow, 58, and Ira Berkowitz, 65, have been regulars since the Portnoy video came out. Every Thursday, they leave their office in Troy at 10:30 a.m. to have lunch at Fredi’s. Like a lot of customers, they’ve become friends with Bello and even play golf together.
“We can’t eat other pizza now,” Chernow said. “He ruined us.”
Chernow took a bite of his triple pepperoni and pointed to Bello and his staff behind the counter.
“The best part about this place is that guy and these people,” he said. “They treat you like family.”
Retire or pursue perfection?
Bello inherited his deep work ethic and a commitment to routine from his father. It’s so deeply ingrained that he almost can’t imagine retiring.
“I could,” he said. “And I think about it, and I say to myself, ‘I can't retire because what am I going to do?’ I've never done anything else, and I've never taught myself.
“This is the biggest thing I have. I've never taught myself how to function without work, and I think some people will understand that. Most people won't understand that.”
The best analogy he can think of to prepare for retirement is throwing out all his clothes and buying an entirely new wardrobe.
Bello doesn’t believe he’ll ever master making dough. But who knows? Maybe if he keeps at it long enough, he’ll be stretching some dough on a peel one Sunday night in February just as he looks up at the TV to watch the final moments of the Lions’ first Super Bowl victory.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Fredi the PizzaMan: 20 years of pizza, a lifetime of Detroit sports love
