Coming from Poland as an immigrant when she was just eleven years old, Ania Duchon— now the owner of multiple eateries around Buffalo including the newly opened Queen City Pizza— never thought her life would lead her down this path, according to her vice president of sales and marketing, Peter Zlotkowski.
Duchon owns multiple popular spots in Buffalo, including Chrusciki Bakery, Sto Lat Bar, and now Queen City Pizza, along with Pierogi Pete’s— a reinvention of their restaurant Simply Pierogi that is opening next month. But her newest opening, Queen City Pizza, is gaining popularity with locals.
Located on Sheridan Drive in Amherst in the plaza right next to the Walmart, Duchon wanted to open a pizza place not just because of its popularity in Buffalo, but because the market for pizza is lucrative. “There’s good money to be made in pizza. It’s an easy product to make,” Zlotkowski said.
But with her background, Duchon didn’t know enough about making good pizza herself in order to hit the ground running. Her strategy? Finding those who do. “Ania is the president of her company, but she surrounds herself with people who are just as smart, if not smarter, than her,” said Zlotkowski.
And the menu reflects the expertise of her chefs and cooks. For pizza, people have the option to customize their crust, sauce, cheese and toppings. “In today’s world, people want more choices,” Zlotkowski noted, adding that they are constantly evolving to see what works and what doesn’t work for customers.
Their specialty pizzas are extremely popular, with favorites being the taco pizza and the chicken finger pizza— the latter winning third place at Resurgence Brewery’s Pizza Fest. “It’ll change your life,” Zlotkowski said of it. With an abundance of extras that customers can opt to add on from vegetables to meats to cheeses, patrons are not likely to get bored of Queen City Pizza.
The restaurant business wasn’t always of interest to Duchon, though. She immigrated to America a couple years after her parents in 1986, and came to the United States to find that her parents had moved from being teachers to working at a bakery in the Broadway Market, known as E&M Bakery. Her parents– the Robienieks– were fleeing from communist Poland, with Zlotkowski confirming the story that they came with only two suitcases and $100.
When the owners of E&M Bakery asked Duchon’s parents to make Polish baked goods to sell, they were up for the challenge. “They said they knew what they were doing even though they had no idea. They were teachers, not bakers,” Zlotkowski said. “It took them months to make a hundred boxes; they sold out right away.” After that, they continued making Polish baked goods for E&M. When the previous owners were ready to retire, they made a “handshake” deal with the Robienieks, and handed the bakery in The Broadway Market over to them.
Now the bakery has been in their family for about 35 years, and Duchon’s reluctance to take over the family business at first, has since sprouted into an ever-growing empire that she is extremely passionate about. She went from coming to America, not knowing English and helping her parents make baked goods in the basement of their East Side home, to owning multiple successful eateries around the Western New York area.
Looking to the future, Duchon wants to continue expanding her restaurant empire with the opening of Pierogi Pete’s as well as franchising the concept. She is always scoping our spots for potential restaurants, while coming up with new ideas to evolve and level up.
Zlotkowski has never seen anyone work as hard as Duchon. “Ania is never complacent. She has that typical immigrant mentality of ‘I need to work. I need to survive,’” he said. “That’s what she was taught by her parents. She is driven beyond anything I’ve ever seen in a business person.”
And as for the outlook of their future, Zlotkowski has complete trust in Duchon and will stick by her in any endeavor she takes up. When it comes to opening new restaurants he said, “They will undoubtedly be a hit. Nobody’s doing what we’re doing.”
Queen City Pizza | 3324 Sheridan Dr, Amherst, NY 14226 | (716) 248-2024
The post <strong>Queen City Pizza: A Fresh Take on a Classic</strong> appeared first on Buffalo Rising.