Popolo’s Pizza has closed. It’s planning a comeback — but not in Fresno
Popolo’s Pizza in Fresno has closed — but only temporarily.
The longtime family-owned restaurant has been serving up pizza and beer in Fresno for 47 years.
It closed June 1. The owners are planning to reopen — just not in Fresno.
The Greene family, two generations of which have run the business over the decades, is moving the pizzeria to Madera Ranchos.
They plan to open at 37275 Avenue 12, suite D, hopefully in about two or three weeks. That’s near the Dollar General and behind the Sinclair gas station with the dinosaur out front.
It’s a change for the pizza place, which has always had a location in Fresno. It started as Aldo’s with a partner and Popolo’s was founded in the late 1970s by Greg and Jane Greene.
Popolo’s once had five locations — two in Fresno, and one each in Visalia, Clovis and Lemoore. Many people remember the restaurant it had for years at Blackstone and Herndon avenues.
In 2016, in moved to Park Place Shopping Center near GB3 at Palm and Nees avenues, adding 1,700 square feet of space, a patio and a bar with more taps.
Why is Popolo’s moving?
The new Popolo’s will be much smaller — about half the size with seating for about 35 people. There won’t be a salad bar. It won’t be full service, meaning customers will order at a counter, instead of having a server take their order at a table.
The menu will be smaller, but it’ll still have the favorites, such as the Papa George pizza (double cheese, double pepperoni), wings and appetizers.
It will have a patio.
Co-owner Tyler Greene, son of the founders, said it was time for the family to move to a smaller restaurant.
“Covid really changed my perspective on things as far as what you can do with minimal amount of space and employees,” he said. “We don’t need 5,300 square feet, and the menu is getting to be too much to handle.”
Popolo’s was facing the same challenges that have led many restaurants to close their doors: rising expenses, such as food costs, labor, energy bills and rent.
Keeping a large restaurant open when a lot to customers didn’t show up was expensive, he said.
The new kitchen was also appropriate for the family’s catering business.
The family also live close to the new restaurant. Greene and his wife, Melissa, wanted to spend more time with their 13-year-old son.
“It just got to be too much. My mom’s getting older. She wants to retire,” he said.
Greene’s dad died in 2016.
“Me and my wife, this is our baby,” he said of the restaurant. “We’re taking what they started and making it more the 2025 version of what they started.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2025 at 10:30 AM.
