Bamie's pizza pops up at Gusto Pizza Bar again with nostalgic pies from 37 years ago

Love Bamie's pizza? Missed the first pop-up for the pizzas at Gusto Pizza Bar in November? The pizzas are coming back.

For two weeks in November, Des Moines residents could take a step back in time to order Bamie’s Pizza House pies. Gusto Pizza Bar on Ingersoll Avenue held a pop-up with Bamie's pizzas as the star.

Now the pizzas again return to the menu at Gusto Pizza Bar on Ingersoll Avenue in Des Moines. On Friday and Saturday, diners can order from one of four variations of the thin-crust pizza with a high, thin lip.

For 23 years, Frank “Bamie” Bonanno, his wife, Coleen “Coke” Bonanno, and the five Bonanno children ran the restaurant on the corner of Army Post Road and Fleur Drive, just south of the airport in Des Moines. The restaurant closed in 1986 when the airport decided to expand and claim the land.

Bamie and Coke’s son Ron Bonanno and his wife, Ann Bonanno, hold the family recipes and make all of the ingredients from the dough to the sauce from scratch. The couple makes their own sausage and shreds their own cheese. They have ways of cooking the ingredients that they only share with the kitchen staff at Gusto.

More: Bamie's Pizza House returns to Des Moines for the first two weeks in November. Find out where.

What kinds of pizzas are on the menu?

All four pizzas return: the Southside Leroy Brown, named in part for the Frank Sinatra version of the Jim Croce song “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” Bamie played on the jukebox. That comes with red sauce, made by hand with the Bonanno’s recipe; mozzarella cheese; Bamie’s sausage, also made by the Bonannos; pepperoni; mushrooms; and roasted red peppers.

The Jackson Street is named for the street Bamie was born on in 1926. His parents, Frank and Grace Bonanno, immigrated from Sicily and Calabria, to Iowa, and settled into the house on the south side of Des Moines. That pizza features red sauce, mozzarella, Bamie’s sausage and mushrooms.

The All Shook Up, named for another Bamie favorite song from Elvis Presley, features red sauce, mozzarella, yellow onions, mushrooms and roasted red peppers.

And Colleen’s “Coke’s” Favorite combines red sauce, mozzarella and yellow onion. The matriarch of the Bonanno family believed a simple pizza gave diners a true taste of the pizza.

How Des Moines reacted to the return of Bamie’s Pizza House

Once Bamie’s Pizza House announced it would again serve its pizzas for two weeks in November after a 37-year hiatus, customers lined up out the door at Gusto Pizza Bar.

“To say it was a successful endeavor is an understatement,” said Gusto Pizza Bar co-owner Tony Lemmo. “It was an amazing experience for the family, for our staff, for me.”

But many fans of the restaurant didn’t get a chance to try to pizzas. Some couldn’t wait for an hour or two, Lemmo said. Other fans weren’t in town.

More: The 33 essential restaurants of Des Moines

When is Gusto Pizza Bar serving Bamie’s pizzas?

Now diners can again score Bamie’s Pizza House pizzas on Friday from 3 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Gusto.

“Bamie’s closed in 1986, so it’s been almost four decades since this pizza is really had an audience to really enjoy it,” Lemmo said.

Gusto also plans to serve Bamie’s pizzas every Thursday starting in 2024 as well. “I can't express how honored I am to eat and make Bamie’s pizza weekly going forward,” Lemmo said.

Lemmo said that people drove in from out of state to order Bamie’s. Others would order five pizzas at a time.

Gusto got so busy that the restaurant stopped serving brunch and its own menu to concentrate on Bamie’s orders. Friends and family came in to help the kitchen staff keep up with demand.

In all, they served more than 3,000 pizzas in those first two weeks in November. “And to think we did it with just twenty-one of the original pie tins from the Bonanno Family is breathtaking, if not damn right miraculous,” Lemmo wrote on Facebook.

To complete that first run at Gusto, singer Jim Croce's son A.J. performed his father's hits at the Hoyt Sherman Place on Nov. 15, the final night of the Bamie's pop-up. “Hollywood could not of written a better feel good story,” Lemmo wrote.

Where to find Gusto Pizza Bar

Location: 2301 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines

Contact: gustopizzaco.com or 515-244-8786

Hours: Open from 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursdays, 3 to 11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.

Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, X, or Instagram, or drop her a line at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Bamie's pop-up pizzas return to Gusto Pizza Bar in Des Moines