In 1959, Mary Fazio opened the original Mary's Pizza Shack using her father’s recipes and her home kitchen’s pots and pans. She created a warm and cozy place where friends and family gathered to enjoy her home-cooked meals. Everything came from scratch—pizza dough, soups, pasta sauces, salad dressings. Mary’s Italian comfort food kept people coming back.

Mary pioneered the open kitchen concept so she could greet each guest as they walked through the door and keep a watchful eye to make sure no one left hungry. That philosophy still guides the Vacaville location today. You’ll see staff working the kitchen right there in front of you, preparing Mary’s Italian comfort food from scratch every single day.

There’s no compromise here: no heat lamps warming up yesterday’s slices, no frozen dough thawing in back, no canned sauces hiding behind the counter. Soups, salad dressings, pasta sauces, pizza dough, and focaccia are all made fresh daily using Mary’s original recipes. The pace in the kitchen reflects this commitment—it’s not fast food, but the wait moves reasonably if you go at off-peak hours.

The restaurant itself has that casual, lived-in feel you’d expect from a place with this kind of history. Families come in regularly, and the staff knows how to handle dogs on the patio. You can bring your own dog to the outdoor seating area, which gives you a chance to enjoy their pizza without the pressure of rushing through a meal. The patio isn’t fancy, but it’s functional and usually has decent shade depending on the time of day.

If you’re in Vacaville and want actual homemade Italian food that tastes like someone’s grandmother made it, this is the place. Just plan on staying a little longer than you might at a chain restaurant—that’s the trade-off for food made fresh while you wait.