TMNT PIZZERIA BRINGS 1987 BACK TO SANTA MONICA

The first official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizzeria opened on June 20 at 1444 Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Slices start at $6.50. Whole pies run $39 to $54. And the man behind the dough, Angelo Womack, previously ran the pizza programs at Roberta's and Scarr's. That last part is not a coincidence. ## A Decade Chasing the Rights Andy Nguyen spent more than ten years trying to open a TMNT restaurant. The rights were at Viacom. Viacom was uninterested. The concept collected dust while Nguyen built an IP dining portfolio anyway: Hello Kitty cafes, a One Piece concept in Little Tokyo, a Sonic the Hedgehog Speed Cafe in Atlanta, restaurants tied to Naruto and Rick and Morty. When Paramount absorbed the property, the conversation finally happened. TMNT Pizzeria opened on a Saturday morning, June 20, 2026, to a line that wrapped the block. Nguyen's model is straightforward: find an IP with a food connection baked into the canon, acquire the license, and build an experience around it. Turtles eating pizza is not metaphor, it is the premise. The Roberta's connection was not marketing. It was credibility insurance. ## 1987, Not 2024 Nguyen made one design choice that tells you everything about who this restaurant is for. The aesthetic is the 1987 animated series, not the 2014 or 2016 live action films, not the 2023 Mutant Mayhem reboot. Neon. Ooze. Hand drawn references. Staff in Foot Clan uniforms and turtle themed aprons. That is a precise targeting decision. The person who grew up watching the original cartoon on Saturday morning is now 35 to 45 years old. They have disposable income. They have children they want to take somewhere that feels like their childhood while still serving food worth eating. [Cherry's expansion to Malibu's Country Mart](/quick/cherry-la-malibu-country-mart-opens-june-2026-cm9r4k2x) operates the same logic: geography and nostalgia as equally important draws. The 3,000 square foot space features ooze installations and neon; the CGI version of anything is nowhere in the building. ## Angelo Womack's Problem The menu had to work on two audiences at once. Womack framed it himself: you have pizza snobs and Ninja Turtles snobs, and they are not the same person. His solution was New York process rigor with California ingredients. Three day dough fermentation. Natural American flours. Hand stretched mozzarella. Stanislaus tomatoes from California's Central Valley. The water pH is calibrated to match New York City tap water. The pies are 20 inches, available whole or by the slice. Cowabunga Cheese: mozzarella, tomato, done. TCRI: stracciatella and a drizzle of basil infused olive oil they call Ooze. Slices run $6.50 to $9. Womack previously owned Oak and Rye in San Jose and shaped some of the most serious pizza programs on the East Coast. He is not a licensing prop. He is the actual pizza program. ## $39 to $54 and a Foot Traffic Bet The Promenade where this opened is not the Promenade of ten years ago. Foot traffic fell from 875,000 visitors in 2017 to 438,000 in 2024. Seventeen percent of storefronts are currently empty. Santa Monica's City Council approved a $3 million economic development fund this spring to attract new tenants and rebuild the corridor's draw. TMNT Pizzeria is the kind of opening that fund was built for. A whole pie at $39 to $54 is not a budget option, which means the restaurant is betting on visitors who planned the trip, not walk in lunch crowds. The full bar and exclusive merchandise reinforce that calculus: this is a destination dining experience. Compare it to [Bode's $388 jean for Levis](/quick/bode-barrel-racer-jean-levis-rodeo-bodeo-2026-bd7k9x2m), which bets on the same customer willing to pay premium prices for something that carries a specific cultural memory. The vehicle is different. The customer logic is identical. ## Sao Paulo, Mexico City, What Paramount Is Actually Building Paramount is not opening a restaurant. Paramount is opening a global IP retail chain that serves food. By the end of 2026, TMNT Pizzeria locations will operate in Santa Monica, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City. That is not a local concept; it is a rollout. The Turtles were always global, first airing in 1987 and eventually reaching 160 countries. The Sao Paulo and Mexico City openings track directly to where that original audience is concentrated today. What Nguyen built on Third Street Promenade is the proof of concept. Womack's pizza clears the credibility bar. The 1987 aesthetic locks the target customer. The $54 ceiling and the merchandise case test the spending floor. If all three hold in Santa Monica, Paramount has a format worth exporting on scale. The only unresolved variable is whether Womack's three day fermentation and pH matched water travels when someone else runs the kitchen in Sao Paulo.