Pete Coratti of Coratti’s Pizzeria, Bar and Bocce

Pete Coratti knows pizza. He has been in the restaurant business since the early 1990s and continues to grow his Italian food empire alongside his family, including nephews Peter Pfeffer and Anthony Coratti.

In 2019, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) awarded Match on Main grants to nine Michigan Main Street communities, including Howell. Celebrating 10 years as an Michigan Main Street community in 2025, Howell also has the distinction of being named the 2018 winner of the Great American Main Street award.

The $25,000 Match on Main grant awarded to Howell helped to transform a vacant call center building into Coratti’s Pizzeria, Bar & Bocce, including furniture, fixtures and kitchen equipment purchases. After opening its Howell location in 2021, Pete expanded the business to a second Coratti’s Pizzeria in Ann Arbor in July 2025, near the University of Michigan’s campus in the original Cottage Inn on Williams St.

Thanks to the support of a loyal fanbase – and the MEDC – the pizza pie’s the limit for Pete and his family-friendly restaurants.

“Pizza’s my passion. I have a pizzeria here in downtown Howell, a pizzeria in Detroit called Gregg’s Pizza and Bar-B-Que, and an Italian restaurant – Coratti’s on Main – in downtown Milford. I’m from Detroit, and my uncle, Lou, and grandmother, Rosa, owned an Italian restaurant there called Lou Rosa. I enjoyed hanging out there, and that got me wanting to do something that concentrated on pizza. 

My nephew Peter and I went to Naples, Italy, to learn how to make Neapolitan-style pizza from the best pizza makers in the world. From there, we went to Bologna, Italy, where we learned how to make gelato. And, of course, being in Detroit, we wanted to offer Detroit-style and traditional American pizza as well. 

I wanted to make the best pizza you could have. I wanted to buy all the best equipment possible, which we have. I wanted to go to the best places to learn, which we did, and use the best quality ingredients, sparing no expense.

Coratti’s Pizzeria opened in downtown Howell in May 2021. It was a good location in a great area in a growing city, and it’s not too far from our Milford location. I thought it was just the right fit for us. 

We received Match on Main and Howell Main Street grants, which helped a lot. It was very expensive to build this restaurant; not only did we want to be able to offer the best pizza by having wood-fired ovens shipped here from Italy, but we also built two bocce courts inside the restaurant. It was nice to have the help through Match on Main and Howell Main Street, and it worked out well.”

A portion of this story originally appeared as part of the Michigan Main Street Story Series.