The new owners of the Pizzeria Capri Ristorante, the Gundeid family, made pizza for parking lot parties after every Dragons home football game this season, a practice started by the former owner, Jacob Begeorges.
The pizza tradition has been going on for some 10 years. Erin Davis, Kelly Stober and Alex Finn, parents of Sonoma Valley High School students who had nothing to do after the Friday night games, came up with the idea. They asked Begeorges, whose restaurant was close to the campus on Broadway, to provide the pizzas, which he agreed to do at a significant discount. Parents supply soft drinks, the students provide music and about 100 students party until the 11:30 p.m. curfew. The local real estate community and other businesses help pay for the pizzas, which cost a few hundred dollars a game. On nights when the Dragons lose, the party cheers up the team, Davis said.
This year, when Begeorges decided to sell the restaurant he started in 1989, he wanted it to remain a family business because that’s the way he’d run it, along with his wife Helena and children Gabriel, Ilona and Johannes.
He offered it to the Gundeids — Inger and Charles and their four children, Steffen, Hanne, Martin and Silje — who took over the pizza and pasta restaurant in September. The new owners are keeping the menu and the employees but are adding delivery in the Sonoma area. The family will make pizza for next season’s football parties, too.
The Gundeids run two other businesses, All About Cakes & Partys on Fifth Street West, and CBG Construction, which is primarily a residential contractor.
Pizzeria Capri Ristorante
1266 Broadway. Sonoma; 707.935.6805
Open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday
