‘A miracle.’ Cerrone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria thanks Columbus for the love after owner’s wreck

For LeighAnn DiCesaris and Cerrone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria, it’s the outpouring of love and support that sustains them through these tough times.

The Columbus restaurant at 7830 Veterans Parkway won the Ledger-Enquirer’s Pizza Bracket in a landslide just weeks after owner Leo DiCesaris was involved in a head-on car crash that left him in the hospital and a rehab facility for three weeks.

The pizza maker is home now, but it will be a while before he’s back in the kitchen.

The weeks that followed that wreck have been the pizzeria’s most successful. Customers and friends have done what they could to surround the DiCesaris family and the restaurant with love, LeighAnn, Leo’s wife, told the Ledger-Enquirer.

“This has been an experience like none other,” she said. “Knowing that God has moved in big and miraculous ways and being able to be a recipient, (and) experience firsthand God’s moving hand — you know, you hear about miracles. But getting to live a miracle ... it’s an honor.”

Cerrone’s founding

Cerrone’s opened in 2015. It was the realization of a dream Leo shared with his brother, Jonathan; and his father, Tom.

It was Fort Benning that brought Tom — an Ossining, New York native — to Columbus as a child. The pizza restaurant was a way for the men to bring their big Italian family’s pizza tradition down south.

But before Leo handled pizza dough for a living, the Northside High alum aimed to flatten defensive linemen on the football field.

Leo and LeighAnn met while students at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, where Leo briefly played football. He’d leave the private liberal arts school before finally settling at Troy University where he played on the offensive line. The 6-foot, 8-inch, Leo was listed at 336 pounds his senior year.

After stints in the Canadian and Indoor football leagues, Leo was working with a cell tower company before he came back to Columbus to open Cerrone’s and pursue the pizza dream.

In the seven years since its founding, Cerrone’s won several pizza-making awards, including the best nontraditional pizza from the Southeast Region in the 2019 International Pizza Challenge at the International Pizza Expo.

Leo hoped to win another award at the 2022 competition, but everything changed on March 10 as DiCesaris was driving to the restaurant.



He didn’t make it to work.

The wreck

Leo was about two blocks from Cerrone’s when he was hit head-on by another vehicle.

According to a copy of the accident report obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer, DiCesaris’ 2022 Cadillac Escalade was traveling north on Veterans Parkway near Tower Road when he was struck by a Ford F-150 driven by former Columbus High and Little League Baseball star Patrick Kyle Carter.



A witness told law enforcement that Carter’s truck was stopped in a marked-off area between the road’s straight lanes and a turn lane. The witness said the truck suddenly lurched into motion, driving onto the grassy median and into oncoming traffic. DiCesaris told police he was traveling between 25 and 30 miles per hour when the truck hit him.

The accident remains under investigation as police said Carter may have suffered from a “medical condition” that contributed to the crash. Both men were taken to Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital. Carter suffered life-threatening injuries, according to the report.

Leo suffered a broken femur, broken ribs, a punctured lung as well as cuts and bruises. He had to be cut free from the vehicle, LeighAnn said.

The Carter and DiCesaris families didn’t know each other before the wreck, but the circumstances brought them together. There’s been nothing but kindness. They’ve prayed for each other and remain in contact, LeighAnn said.

“The prayers are what matters the most and just sharing that support,” she said. “The prayers are working. We’ve seen miracles happen in these last four weeks. ... We’re praying fiercely for (Kyle). ... We care deeply about his recovery as well.”

Leo spent two weeks at the hospital. During that time, he developed blood clots and a pulmonary embolism before his condition improved. He was transferred to the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation where he spent a week before returning home. He’s able to use a walker, but he can’t move much. His ribs are still healing.

“He’s still in tremendous pain,” LeighAnn said. “He’s going to have a lot of rehab for his leg and to be able to gain full mobility again.”

Friends, family and coworkers have pitched in. They’ve helped LeighAnn care for the couple’s two children: a 4-year-old daughter, Emersyn; and a two-year-old son, Maximus. Their help has allowed LeighAnn to be by Leo’s side throughout his recovery.

The pizza

The DiCesaris family received thousands of messages of support, and Cerrone’s has gotten plenty of pizza orders in the last month.

It’s easy to see why the pizzeria got more than 12,000 votes of the 16,000 cast in the final round of the L-E’s pizza bracket. We visited the restaurant Thursday afternoon to try some pie.

We ordered the “Smoking Cerrone” — a pizza with a roasted red pepper cream sauce base, topped with smoked mozzarella, roasted red bell peppers, chopped basil, hand pinched sausage and red onions. We got the square, enough to feed two or three diners.

The cheese-to-sauce ratio was excellent, and I got a big, gooey strand of the mozzarella in my first bite. The earthy pepper slivers paired well with the light heat of the sausage and the pepper sauce. The crust was dead center between crisp and fluffy.

Winning the bracket, LeighAnn said, was important to Leo. It is an extension of the support and love the community has shown him since the wreck.

“It really gave him some joy,” she said. “Just to have the community acknowledge and love and vote for Cerrone’s through this was really a big win for him. He really enjoyed that.”

Ledger-Enquirer reporter Mark Rice contributed to this article.