A few years back, I accepted a vegan friend’s invitation to lunch at Philadelphia’s plant-based 20th Street Pizza. I entered as a skeptic. Two slices later, I was a true believer that this stuff with non-dairy cheese and pepperoni made from seitan could hang with the genuine article. I think the first words out of my mouth after a few bites were, “Holy f***, this s*** is excellent.”
The pizza at Bethlehem’s Paranormal Pizza, the first and only plant-based pizzeria in the Lehigh Valley, hit me similarly.
Paranormal (the owners have an interest in the paranormal, as the shop’s alien-forward decor would indicate) does traditional thin-crust and Detroit-style pies, in addition to plant-based wings, cheesesteaks, and burgers, using sourdough, scratch-made mozzarella and ricotta cheeses (made from cashews and almonds, respectively), and toppings like seitan sausage, pepperoni, and chick’n, which are also made in house.
On my first visit, I opted for a Detroit-style, and, much like my experience at 20th Street, you could’ve fooled me. The caramelized cheese went right to the crispy edges of a light rectangular crust topped with tangy sauce and strips of basil. It tasted, well, like a Detroit-style pie should taste.
More recently, I stopped in for a large plain (aka The Mulder—the pizzas are all named after “X-Files” characters) and was again impressed, particularly with the sauce and the crispy yet foldable crust that popped with sourdough flavor. Vegan cheese does take getting used to. You don’t get the “pull” from plant-based mozzarella like you do from the dairy-based stuff, and the texture and consistency can be a little gooey. But the flavor profile on Paranormal’s mozzarella certainly wasn’t lacking.
Marc Kubushefski, who owns Paranormal with his twin brother, Joey, said he’s experienced similar reactions from other non-vegan eaters like myself who are surprised by how much his shop’s plant-based pizzas taste like “real” pizza.
“We’ve had customers who aren’t vegan try it, and tell us how they can’t believe how good it is,” said Kubushefski. “At the end of the day, we’re just trying to make really good pizza that happens to be vegan. We consider ourselves a traditional pizzeria.”
The path to plant-based pizza
Kubushefski said he began considering a plant-based diet more than a decade ago after seeing a guy “out-repping everybody” at his gym—and later learning he was vegan. Ultimately, it was an encounter with a cow during a bike ride in the Lehigh Valley countryside that prompted him to make the shift.
“I stopped on the side of the road to drink some water, and I looked to my right, and there’s a cow staring at me over this fence,” said Kubushefski. “And I was looking at it, and it just clicked. This animal was just bred to pop out kids, give up its milk, have its kids taken away, and then it goes to slaughter. It’s kind of a horrible life when you think about it that way. I just went cold turkey vegan that day.”
Joey, who was already a vegetarian, would follow Marc in adopting a plant-based diet, going all-in after finally giving up traditional pizza.
It wasn’t until a few years later, during the pandemic, when the brothers began experimenting with making plant-based pizza. Marc said he “got a bachelor’s degree” in the basics of making plant-based pizza by watching YouTube tutorials. Working in his kitchen, he experimented with recipes for sourdough crust, sauce, and non-dairy cheese made from cashews.
Once Marc had a handle on the basics, he and Joey worked together to master their cheese and toppings, and began posting photos of their plant-based pies on Instagram. Friends began to comment that the pies looked so good they should sell them, so they did. Though the brothers both worked full-time at Mack Trucks in Macgunie, they found the time to make pizzas in Marc’s kitchen and sell them frozen, one night a week, consistently selling out.
Demand for their plant-based pies increased to the point that they moved operations into Marc’s garage, where they began selling the pies hot out of the Baker’s Pride pizza oven they’d installed. Realizing their plant-based pies were filling a hole in the Lehigh Valley food scene, the brothers, both married with children, decided to leave their jobs at Mack and open their own plant-based pizza shop.
“It was a 100% leap of faith,” said Marc. “But we talked to other people who opened businesses, and all of them said, ‘We wish we started the business sooner. You’re not going to know until you do it.’ We had tested the waters selling pizzas out of my house and our brand was starting to build some Instagram recognition. I wouldn’t say we felt safe (opening a pizzeria). But we felt comfortable that we could sign a five-year lease somewhere and say ‘Let’s see what happens in five years.’”
The community comes through
Paranormal opened with a bang on Bethlehem’s north side in the spring of 2022. The brothers said business exceeded their expectations and was improving each month, until a three-alarm fire in February 2023 destroyed the building the shop was located in.
The building’s owner told them they’d be back in business in six to eight months, so they secured a small loan to help them rebuild from the Rising Tide Community Loan Fund, a subsidiary of Community Action Lehigh Valley, a nonprofit focused on addressing housing, food insecurity, and poverty. They also purchased a food truck and did pop-ups at local restaurants to keep the brand alive and money coming in. As the timeline to reopen kept getting longer and funds were getting tighter, support from their dedicated customer base fortified their resolve to reopen.
“The first pizza pop-up we did after the fires was just 50 pizzas and you had to call to order,” Kubushefski recalled. “People were showing us their phones that they tried to call multiple times and couldn’t get through. We felt so much support from people that if we didn’t come back, we’d be letting so many people down. We didn’t want to do that.”
When they were no closer to reopening after a year they began searching for a new spot and eventually entered into a lease on their current location on E. 3rd Street. But their quest to fire up the ovens again was far from over.
They signed the new lease in summer 2024 but didn’t receive building permits from the city until February 2025. They were finally ready to start building out that April but then a contractor ghosted them, taking off with their deposit. When they were finally nearing the finish line last fall, another giant hurdle appeared. Because of conflicting messages from different city inspectors, they were faced with an expensive scenario where they would have to undo existing plumbing and electrical work to get the pizzeria up to code. While they managed to find a less expensive solution, it was still more than they could afford given their circumstances. So they turned to crowdfunding.
“We were pretty much out of money at that point,” Kubushefski explained. “We were paying rent on a place that wasn’t open, paying the loan on our food truck, and we lost money to the contractor. We were bleeding money to get the place open. We didn’t want to have to go into crowdfunding but that was our only option really.”
Paranormal surpassed its fundraising goal of $20,000, as the pizzeria’s loyal customers stepped up with donations ranging from $10 to $5,000 dollars, and messages of support like “Love you guys so much! Your energy and creativity has been amazing for the vegan and plant-based community. So grateful that you have pushed through.”
After nearly three years, Paranormal finally reopened late last year. Not surprisingly, their loyal customers have been showing up. Without their support, Kubushefski said, it’s likely Paranormal wouldn’t have been able to navigate the challenges it faced after its first location burned down.
“Honestly, if we didn’t have so much community support behind us, it would have been easier to say, ‘Let’s just cut our losses,’” Kubushefski said. “We have a really awesome customer base. We know so many people that walk through our door on a first-name basis. Every one of them is super supportive and rallied for us to get back in business.”
