Like a lot of people who grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania—home to the “Pizza Capital of the World,” Old Forge—Jim Mirabelli developed a passion for pizza at a young age.
He began working in pizzerias like Dino & Francesco’s in his native Clarks Summit at the age of 14, starting out as a dishwasher before working his way up to become a pizza maker himself.
“I was fascinated by watching the guy making the pizzas,” Mirabelli said. “I wanted to be that guy.”
After about 10 years, Mirabelli’s passion for pizza took him in a different direction. In the days before pizza influencers were a ubiquitous online presence, Mirabelli launched his NEPA Pizza Review website in 2012, a one-stop shop for pizza reviews, product reviews, and recipes.
Since launching his website, Mirabelli has become a go-to media source for his NEPA pizza expertise and an influencer in his own right, with more than 30,000 Instagram followers and 60,000 fans of his Facebook page.
Mirabelli says one of his core missions is to spread awareness of NEPA/Old Forge-style pizza, which doesn’t necessarily have the recognition of other regional styles like Chicago deep-dish, New York-style pies, or the perfectly-charred pies New Haven, Connecticut is known for.
“I know there’s an awareness because there’s a lot of haters out there on Old Forge pizza,” Mirabelli said. “To me, that’s a great sign that they’re aware. I love when the haters come in. That means they know, they’re aware of it.”
‘A couple of dads with pizza problems’
It was through social media that Mirabelli connected with another Pennsylvania pizza enthusiast, Montgomery County resident Jim Henry.
Unlike Mirabelli, Henry, a native of State College, had no background in the pizza business. He merely enjoyed eating the stuff. And during the pandemic he began making Detroit-style pizzas at home, selling them out of his driveway, and donating the money to charity. Mirabelli caught wind of Henry’s driveway pizza pop-ups and drove down to check it out.
The pair immediately bonded over their commonalities, like their love of Philadelphia sports. And as pizza lovers with responsibilities like full-time jobs (Mirabelli is an accounting consultant for public school districts; Henry works for an engineering firm) and children, Mirabelli said they realized they were “a couple of dads with pizza problems.”
Those “pizza problems” became an asset when Mirabelli put on a pizza making class as a scholarship fundraiser for culinary students at Lackawanna College in 2024, and enlisted Henry’s assistance. With the help of sponsors like pizza oven and accessory manufacturer Ooni (for whom Henry is a brand ambassador), the class was a success. It also triggered a desire in the pair to find a way to share their pizza-making knowledge with other pizza enthusiasts who wanted to make their own pies at home, but didn’t know where to start.
“We really loved teaching, it really sparked something in us,” Henry said of the fundraising class. “We were like ‘How do we take this, and do it where we’re not restricted by physical location, we’re not restricted by the numbers of people we can host, and we don’t need a venue?’ So that’s when the whole virtual thing came about. There’s a ton of Zoom cooking classes out there, everybody was doing them during the pandemic. We did not want to do that. We wanted to make it more like an interactive cooking show.”
From that idea, Mirabelli and Henry launched their online Virtual Pizza Academy in January 2025 with a class on making Detroit-style pies, Henry’s specialty, that drew 90 students. A class the following month on Mirabelli’s specialty, pan-fried Sicilian pizza, attracted 100 participants, and the pair began to feel like they were on to something.
They offered their 90-minute monthly classes live for the first six months. After some re-tooling, they added shorter on demand tutorials on topics like using an outdoor Ooni oven and dough prep.
By drilling down on the more granular aspects of pizza making, Mirabelli said he feels like the classes empower participants to feel like they could make pies like the ones from their favorite pizzerias.
“We want to be like that magician that shows you all the tricks,” he said. “We want people to walk away from our classes feeling like they can do it.”
Bringing NEPA pizza to the world
Since launching the virtual Pizza Academy in January 2025, Mirabelli and Henry have had 1,700 students participate in classes from across the country and the globe. During a recent class I attended on Old Forge-style pizza, there were participants from as nearby as Dallas, Pa. and as far away as Australia.
“We had two different people from Iceland in the same class once, and I was surprised they didn’t know each other,” Henry said with a laugh.
The fast-paced classes, which cost $40 and include a PDF recipe book and the ability to view again on-demand, could easily pass for something you’d see on the Food Network with Mirabelli offering step-by-step instructions in a ready-for-prime-time kitchen (which he built in his garage after taking over the kitchen in his home for hours at a time became unsustainable). There’s also a lively chat component with participants asking the hosts questions like whether ghee or Crisco can be used instead of butter to grease a pan (it can) and best practices for freezing excess dough.
As word has spread about the Virtual Pizza Academy, Henry said they’ve discovered a fair amount of NEPA transplants around the country with a yearning for the pizza they grew up with.
“Finding these people, or them finding us, and now they can make that pizza, wherever they are in the country, they’re so grateful,” Henry said. “We have one guy in Saint Croix in the US Virgin Islands who grew up in northeast Pa. and found us. The guy could not get northeast Pa.-style pizza in the islands and now he can make it himself. He sent us pictures and it looks amazing. And he wrote us a heartfelt testimonial. I almost cried reading it. This is really what it’s all about.”
