Actually he has been working at “Big Daddy’s” for a long time but now Tony Dunbar and his wife Kayla are the owners of the popular pizzeria on K-Beach Rd. in the Red Diamond Center. “I started making pies professionally about 12 years ago when I was 18 and have really been making pizzas my whole life, love it, really enjoy working hard and now I’m living my dream of owning my own place,” he told the Dispatch. Dunbar considers he learned the business from the ground up as an apprentice and got most of his experience on the job, “A lot people have taught me things like how to throw pizza dough without losing it, it’s an art form and I’ve worked with different pros at different companies who helped me slowly learn the art,” said Dunbar who was born and raised in the local area. “I worked for Godfather’s back in the day when they were still in town and now I love being the Big Daddy, I simply have a passion for making pizza and good food.”

Big Daddy’s has become well known for their signature J-bird pizza that features their own made in house garlic ranch, chicken, black olives, mushrooms, tomatoes and artichokes. “We also recently came up with a recipe for spicy garlic wings to promote more wings and they’ve been a bigger hit than we expected. We only introduced them about a week ago and already ran out of the sauce once, but we have more now. Also we’ve collaborated with Kenai River Brewery and created a wing sauce from one of their beers so we have a craft beer infused wing sauce that is excellent and you can’t get it anywhere else,” said Tony. Taking a fresh pie out of the oven Tony’s wife Kayla said, “What I like best about the business is that it’s family oriented and I get to go to work with my husband and we get to share everyday all things together, now some days we can have differences of opinion but in the end he’s Big Daddy the boss who knows how to listen to Mama,” laughed Kayla.

Big Daddy’s also features a delicious gluten free dough, make their own pizza marinara sauce and garlic ranch sauce in house and deliver down a wide area of K-Beach Rd. and to most of Kenai and Soldotna. In addition to pizza, which they also sell by the slice, Big Daddy’s has wings, calzones, salads, breadsticks, cheese sticks and cinnamon dessert sticks. You can become a friend of Big Daddy on Facebook or visit their website bigdaddyspizzaak.com where you’ll find all their store information which is updated frequently with special offers. Big Daddy’s summer hours are Monday-Thursday 10am-9pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-10pm and closed on Sundays.