Our History

Founders, Jon Patten and Bill Scott, came to Albuquerque from Michigan in 1978. Friends since junior high school, they moved to Albuquerque with plans of opening up a restaurant. After purchasing New York Pizza, a small local restaurant in the Northeast Heights, Jon and Bill proceeded with plans of turning the pizzeria into a Greek restaurant. While waiting for equipment necessary for the preparation of Greek food, the previous owner taught them how to make pizza so they could continue to operate in the interim. After a few weeks, Jon and Bill started serving Greek food along with pizza. Surprisingly, customers continued to order pizza, encouraging Jon and Bill to develop and refine a quality pizza recipe, eventually resulting in the great tasting classic Dion’s pizza you enjoy today.

At Dion’s, we owe much of our success to several fundamental rules established in the beginning from which we operate today:

  • Always use the finest ingredients.
  • Never change ingredients simply to get the cheapest price.
  • Only serve pizza, salads and submarine sandwiches that we are proud of.
  • Hire the best people.  Promote team players and cooperation.
  • Give the customer exceptional quality, service, cleanliness and a teamwork environment.
Our system seems to be working. We have received several awards over the years for our quality of pizza. The first recognition came in November of 1979, only nineteen months after opening our first location. The Albuquerque Tribune named Dion’s "second best pizza in town." This would be our last second place finish.

Since then, Dion’s has been voted "Best Pizza" in Albuquerque several times by both the Albuquerque Journal and Albuquerque Tribune. Dion’s was also named "Best Pizza" by television’s PM Magazine in March of 1984. We received the title of "Best Pizza" by Albuquerque Monthly Magazine from 1989 through its last year of publication in 1996.

Dion’s is a family-oriented business. Our restaurants do not serve alcohol. Viewing stands enable children to watch pizza as it is being made. Tours are given to community children Monday through Saturday; approximately 12,000 children tour Dion’s restaurants each year.

Dion’s has grown from one employee in 1978, 12 employees in 1979, to over 800 employees today. At Dion’s we promote a good working environment for all of our employees. Many people form lasting friendships while working for us. Dion’s service is geared toward families, so we hire clean cut, active individuals, most of whom are high school or college age. Dion’s is willing to work around busy employee schedules and encourages employees to be involved in extracurricular activities.

Because all Dion’s cooking is done from scratch, the company has an extensive training program for both new employees and upper management, to ensure that our quality is consistent.  Dion’s trains its employees and promotes from within.  Upper management is mainly comprised of older and experienced employees. Evaluations are given to all employees and managers; praise and bonuses are handed out frequently. Employees are regarded with respect and their concerns are taken seriously. Profit sharing and many career paths are offered to Dion’s employees.

Because Patten and Scott believe that everyone should be treated fairly, from the best customer to their employees and suppliers, they tend to have long lasting relationships with all the people they deal with in business.

For the future, Dion’s is planning to expand its presence in Albuquerque and in other out-of-state markets. This will enable Dion’s to work towards our life long goal of world wide pizza domination by the year 3000!