At the counter of Antonia’s Pizza, a man waits patiently to give his order. Samantha Elhajhasr chats with the man from behind the counter as he points to the display of pepperoni pizza and Coke.
“That’s one of our regulars,” Hitham Elhajhasr tells me, as his daughter Samantha serves him.
She doesn’t ask for payment.She doesn’t ask because her mom, the restaurant’s namesake, makes a point to give food to those who can’t afford it. She doesn’t ask because, growing up, Samantha’s family couldn’t always afford food, either.
“[My mom] knows what it’s like to have to feed her kids and not being able to,” Samantha said.
The Elhajhasr family opened Antonia’s in Downtown San Luis Obispo one year ago, but they first got into the pizza business in 1987 thanks to a chance encounter. While buying pizza in Atascadero, Hitham had joked that if the owner were looking to sell, he’d be interested. At age 12, Samantha began running their pizza shop with her dad. She called it the “typical American dream.”
But before that dream, Samantha said her and her family were “starting from the bottom.”
After an electrical fire burned down their home in Berkeley, they went shelter to shelter, a social worker helping to get them food and jobs. While losing her home, Antonia was nine months pregnant with twins, and lost them too. Antonia and Hitham take every chance they can now to talk about their five children and 14 grandchildren (with one more on the way).
Hitham grew up in Kuwait and came to the U.S. to become a pilot. While attending flight school, he met Antonia through a mutual friend. He wasn’t Samantha and her sisters’ birth father, but he says he fell in love with Antonia’s kids just as much as her. Being apart from his family, he says Antonia’s daughters reminded him of his own sisters around the same age.
“My plan was just, go to school and go back,” Hitham said. “I guess God had other plans.”
Antonia, a retired English professor, grew up in the Bronx. Her parents immigrated from Sicily, inspiration for the wallpaper that coats one wall of the restaurant.
Hitham pursued his love for flying while working as a pilot at United Airlines. Sitting in Antonia’s, he reminisced on a hobby-turned-job that exposed him to people of different cultures. In the end, he realized he’d make more money in the pizza business.
When asked if he regrets anything, Hitham pauses to think.
The silence breaks when Samantha answers a call behind him.
“Thanks for calling Antonia’s…For 20 people?”
His smile grows until he admits he can’t think of anything he regrets. “I was just trying to make more for my kids,” Hitham said. “And I did, so I really can’t say that I regret it.”
Samantha and her sisters’ childhoods consisted of solving riddles Hitham gave them while they made pizzas after school. Samantha said she most valued the protection of Hitham during her childhood.
“A man takes on a wife, three kids and takes us from literally nothing,” Samantha said. “That’s when everything started to happen. It was like a domino effect.”
They built 13 locations, from California to Hawaii to Jordan, where much of Hitham’s family lives. He decided to sell the stores and retire. Retirement only lasted three years before Hitham went all-in on Antonia’s.
Previously, their old pizza places were well supported by locals. Here, they’re still learning how to reach the college student customer base — while navigating the uncertain and expensive fate of downtown businesses.
“The business is small and people are still trying to find out who we are, what we are,” Antonia said. “When they do, they enjoy their experience here. They enjoy the food.”
The organization Downtown SLO reported that 16 storefronts closed from January to August 2023, but 23 new businesses arrived. The family says it’s been challenging, but Hitham appreciates the sense of community.
“We treat everybody as a family; that’s how we’ve run all of our locations,” Hitham said.
As Hitham speaks, his eyes follow each passerby outside the restaurant’s windows, ready to spring up for anyone who enters.
A year from now, Hitham and Antonia hope to pass the business on to Samantha and her brother.
“I really don’t know how long I can do these hours,” Hitham said.
The 4 p.m. lull ends thanks to a delivery order. Samantha’s unsure how to get to the address provided, and the father-daughter pair have to call Antonia — sick at home that day — to figure out how to enter the credit card information.
The chaos continues as they throw on small red aprons and head to the kitchen to start the hand-tossed pizzas.
“Oh — white sauce,” Samantha says as she scrapes off the scoop of marinara sauce she prematurely plopped onto the pizza.
As she turns her back, Hitham swings the pizza under the faucet and rinses off the remaining red stains. He cracks a smile as he presents to her a clean slate.