For most people, a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease would be devastating. For John Arena, it simply dictated an opportunity to make a positive impact in his community using his most trusted weapon: Pizza.
With his diagnosis, Arena, a founding partner of Las Vegas’ Metro Pizza, asked himself, “How do I make something good out of it?” He found that kneading pizza dough was therapeutic for the progression of his own Parkinson’s and he believes it will help others.
The realization helped lead to the creation of The John Arena Foundation at Las Vegas’ Cleveland Clinic. Arena is an articulate man who passionately explains his goal to enhance the lives of fellow patients and their caregivers using the skills he mastered on the pizza line.
The concept is simple: engage Parkinson’s patients to “stay active” by learning new skills on the pizza line and create things with their hands that they’ve never done before.
For Arena, Parkinson’s snuck up slowly. The diagnosis eleven years ago now prevents him from a trademark of his management style: jumping on the prep line during busy periods. In a voice softened and slowed by the disease, he laments the day, “I slowed the line down.”
His Foundation’s plan is to invite Parkinson’s patients to one of Metro’s area locations to knead dough with their own hands. “When you learn new skills, it builds neural pathways,” he explained, describing the nerve bundles destroyed by the disease.
The newly created pathways are shown to slow the symptom’s progress. “The pizza they make, they take home (to share with their family).”
Arena’s philosophy is to bring together patients as a group, “It’s easier to be engaged when you’re engaged face to face.” He explained that Parkinson’s patients “tend to isolate themselves.”
Since his teen years working in his family’s pizzerias, he recognized the “community nature” as pizza chefs and customers collaborated to create a pizza. “They figured it out with their friends and family,” he said observing them choose toppings.
“Then they then communicate that with the pizza maker and he tries to recreate it. What they get is the perfect pizza,”
Arena and his partner, his cousin Sam Facchini arrived in Las Vegas in a borrowed car in 1980. The neighborhood pizzeria they purchased “was zoned equestrian. People came in on horseback.”
They quickly recognized that there was no “best pizza”. Their first two customers were loyal to their hometown recipes, Detroit and Philadelphia.”
Instead of challenging customer’s tastes with their recipes, the pair chose to recreate those hometown variations, inspiring the name Metro. The name, Arena said, pays homage to each city’s variation.
With a commitment to quality and service to the industry, Metro grew to seven Las Vegas locations and Arena became a nationally known ambassador for the industry. He was the keynote speaker at this year’s National Pizza Expo in Las Vegas and created and taught The Culture of Pizza at UNLV’s Culinary School.
USA Today named Metro one of the Top 10 pizzerias in the country and Arena is a 5-time winner of Zagat’s Best Pizza Award.
When asked the secret to his pizza’s success, Arena replied, “time,” the aging process for the dough. “If you’re in wine country…and you saw a sign that said ‘wine made fresh daily’ would you pull in? No! The same thing with our pizza.”
“I’m not remarkable. Everybody is remarkable. My real strength is to be so ordinary,” he says of the gratitude that he’s received for the contributions he’s made to the industry and community. “Kindness to others is the rent you pay for your space on earth.”
For information, visit: www.worldpizzachampions.com/john-arena-foundation
