In the early 1960s, the Coop was part of a short-lived chain of restaurants serving roasted chicken, ribs, and shrimp out of the tiny kitchen packed with fryers until it went out of business in 1968.

Capron already had some local support. His first pizza shop was in a shack in Sandwich in 2021. "It was a pigeon coop." But the pigeon coop was a hit.

Six years ago, he turned it into a co-op by selling the business to his staff as a leveraged buyout. The employee-owners are now paying back a business loan with the profits generated by the company.

The pizza oven has flown the coop at Stingray, the bar and pizza joint that Leigh Jones of Jonesey's EatBar and her partner, Margaret Moore (together they also own Bar Car and the Horseshoe Lounge ...

How a South Bay pizza shop owner transformed his business into a worker-owned co-op 02:52. SAN JOSE -- There is something different about A Slice of New York Pizza in San Jose.