Summit Brick Oven Pizza Shut Down

Summit Brick Oven Pizza was been abruptly closed down on Tuesday afternoon after years of teetering on the edge of closure.

According to sources, the pizzeria was closed for non-payment of taxes and health department concerns.

“The state closed down the restaurant for non-payment of taxes and the county shut it down for health concerns,” the sources said. 

On the windows of the former pizzeria are two signs that indicate a seizure for tax reasons and an unsatisfactory regional health department sanitary inspection report.

The regional health department was contacted for this story but would not comment.

The restaurant’s closing, sources said, is the culmination of years of mismanagement and the deterioration of a relationship between two brothers - Vinnie and Vito Celii - who once enjoyed local popularity as owners of some of the tastiest pizza in town.

The sources said that in recent years, the restaurant was unable to serve all of the dishes on its menu because the owners had not conducted the ordering properly.

“I would tell Vinnie that because of the way he managed things that he was going to get closed down,” sources said. “I was told it was none of my business.”

The threat of closing had loomed for years, the sources said, and added that Vinnie regularly told staff that the restaurant could be closed down at any time.

Vinnie, who also works part time as a film history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, was entrusted every aspect the Summit Brick Over Pizza business, according to sources, including the restaurant’s financials. Although no evidence was furnished, sources said that at the time the restaurant was shut down on Tuesday afternoon, Vinnie had owed the IRS a great deal of back taxes.

The sources said that Vito, who has owned the restaurant since 1998, apparently trusted his brother to, at the very least, keep the restaurant afloat, if not thrive. Earlier in his career, Vinnie apparently worked on Wall Street.

“Vito feels like his brother took his whole life from him,” the sources said. “They are not speaking right now. They are actual enemies.”