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A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
Shakespeare may have known how to turn a phrase, but according to a couple of guys who make a good living throwing pizza and hoagies to hordes of hungry Twin Cities customers, he sure didn't know anything about running a restaurant.
The restaurant chain is called Davanni's, but it used to be known as Pontillo's. And when expansion plans required that the company change its name to ensure it had exclusive rights to the corporate moniker, it almost put a couple of pizza guys out of business.
This is what happened: Gladstone Mcffinley (Mick) Stenson, president of Davanni's, and Roger Schelper, vice-president, graduated from Edina High School in 1966 and were fraternity brothers and best friends at the University of Minnesota. By the early 1970s, the two friends found themselves looking for a challenge and a career direction.
Enter Bob Carlson, fellow Edina High School alumnus and heir to the family-owned Minnesota Rubber Co., based in St. Louis Park. Carlson, who was living in Cleveland at the time while working as a traveling salesman for his father's company, struck up a friendship with Pat Woodring, an office-equipment salesman who lived in the same apartment complex.
Woodring eventually returned to his hometown of Rochester, N.Y., where his father-in-law, Tony Pontillo, was waiting to welcome him into the family's pizzeria business. The next time Carlson was in New York on business, he stopped at Pontillo's to see Woodring, who introduced him to the family's homemade pizza. It was love at first bite.
When Carlson moved back to Minneapolis to take the helm at Minnesota Rubber, he told his pals Roger and Mick about the great pizza his friend was making in New York City. Ever the entrepreneur, Carlson suggested that the three of them start up a pizza business to generate some side income.
"I was looking for something," recalls Schelper, who had just left a general manager position at Nutrition World. "I wanted to get in my own business and not work for somebody again. Bob said, 'Why don't you go out to Pat's in New York, work in the restaurant for a weekend and see what you think?' So I did. Then I...