IP-oriented restaurateur Andy Nguyen, who has previously opened concepts based on Hello Kitty and Sonic the Hedgehog, has spent more than a decade chasing his “dream project”: producing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizzeria. After years of indifference and then a false start with rights holders Viacom, he’s now a partner under new ownership at Paramount — which has a pair of TMNT franchise films scheduled for 2027 and 2028 — in the themed restaurant, which will debut June 20 along the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. “I finally got that green light,” he says, still sounding shocked.
Nguyen’s physical vision is a restoration adaptation, eschewing the live-action amphibians of recent years in favor of reveling in the aesthetics of the 1987 animated series. “I call it the ‘Millennium Turtles,'” he says. “Those original cartoons, and the way they’re drawn, there’s a sense of fun that brings you joy.”
Josh Silverman, Paramount’s president of global products and experiences, points to the look of the 1987 series as a “key piece of creativity” for the franchise and points out that “there’s a term we use: ‘new stalgia’.” It’s new for kids but nostalgic for adults, often their parents.
The Silverman division includes 32 Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. locations. (Paramount Distribution forrest gump.) The studio plans to open two more TMNT pizzerias by the end of the year, in São Paulo and Mexico City. “They are spiritually similar, also based on the ’87 cartoon.”
Paramount’s core belief is that brand extensions — including, in today’s vernacular, immersive experiences like restaurants — cannot be exploitative. “It should be a check in for the brand, not a checkout,” Silverman said.
To that end, Nguyen enlisted the help of pizza consultant Angelo Womack to advise on the pies. “If we didn’t want to be in New York, we needed a New York pizza chef to help us build a real product,” he says, adding: “We didn’t want this to be a new gimmick. This place can’t just look cool. The food is the element of surprise. good. We know we need to beat expectations. Otherwise, the fans will crush you.”
The challenge with this project, explains Womack, a vet at Brooklyn’s popular pizzeria Roberta’s, was “the desire to please everyone from pizza lovers to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle snobs — oops, maybe we’ll call them both ‘connoisseurs.'” The resulting Santa Monica TMNT pizzeria is heavily inspired by New York City favorites Scars and Mama Too! and Brooklyn DOP. (The Shredder’s Revenge, with its spicy blend of pepperoni and jalapeño and Mike’s Hot Honey, an ode to Scarr’s staple product Hotboi.)
Under Womack, the cheese is Grande, the tomatoes are California Stanislaus, the flour is from King Arthur and the local water is pH balanced to match the Manhattan. There’s not a single basil leaf on a slice. “I couldn’t see Donatello eating that, and the kids didn’t want to see it,” he says. But the green, basil-infused olive oil is in TCRI’s pie. “It looks like glow slime from TCRI,” says Womack, referring to the radioactive mutagen from the TMNT universe.
The main creative challenge was thinking about cheese. “Turtle-related pizza is cartoon pizza,” says Womack. “It’s super pulling power. Does that make a good New York-style pizza? Not really. Pizza is about the balance of tomato and cheese. In real life, you don’t want it to be overloaded with cheese.” However, he knows there is experiential satisfaction for some visitors, regardless of practicality. “So, we provide an option for guests to prepare the cheese. If the guest wants it, we want to offer it to them.”
