The first-ever official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizzeria opened on Wednesday, June 10 at 1444 Third Street Promenade for a limited soft opening, bringing the beloved franchise's sewer-dwelling heroes into the world of brick-and-mortar dining for the first time in the brand's history.
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| Photo credit: Santa Monica Daily Press |
The restaurant, located in the former home of Johnnie's New York Pizzeria, will operate in soft-opening mode through Sunday, June 14, then go dark for a few days before a formal ribbon cutting Saturday, June 20 at 11:00 a.m. Opening day will special character appearances and giveaways, as well as exclusive items for the first 100 customers to make a purchase.
Billed as an immersive dining experience, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizzeria: Los Angeles was created in collaboration with Paramount Products & Experiences and Lunchbox Group.
The concept is the work of Andy Nguyen, a serial entrepreneur with a track record in fan-focused, IP-licensed themed dining. Nguyen, who developed the One Piece Cafe in Little Tokyo in collaboration with Toei Animation as well as the Sonic the Hedgehog Speed Cafe in Atlanta, has also brought concepts tied to Hello Kitty, Rick and Morty, Naruto, and other pop culture properties to life. He began
publicly teasing the Santa Monica pizzeria in mid-2025, describing plans for a "classic New York-style cheesy slice straight to the West Coast — with a TMNT twist" that had been "years in the making."
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| Photo credit: Santa Monica Daily Press |
The restaurant, housed in a 3,000-square-foot space, promised a casual, family-friendly environment with themed decor and exclusive on-site merchandise which it has delivered to the struggling Promenade. The menu features classic pizzas and an assortment of keychains, t-shirts, pins and other items, plus interactive photo moments and themed cocktails for fans. Staff are wearing TMNT themed clothing with pizza chefs donning turtle themed aprons and floor staff dressed as foot clan ninjas.
The menu was developed with consultation from Brooklyn-based Angelo Womack, a veteran pizzaiolo who has worked with acclaimed pizzerias like Roberta’s, Oak & Rye, Glide, Mama’s Boy and Scarr’s.
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| Photo credit: Santa Monica Daily Press |
Unlike the Ninja Turtles themselves, who famously top their pies with everything from marshmallow and peanut butter to jellybeans, TMNT Pizzeria follows a more classic New York-style protocol.
Its pizza program includes a three-day dough fermentation process, natural American flours, hand-stretched mozzarella and California Stanislaus tomatoes. They even match their water’s pH level to that of New York City in an homage to the sewer-dwelling superheroes’ hometown.
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| Photo credit: Santa Monica Daily Press |
The interior features wall to wall TMNT decor, mainly inspired by the '80s
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series including the classic ooze and a variety of neon lights. A bar in the back will serve alcohol on weekends.
The Santa Monica location is one of three TMNT pizzerias announced globally by Paramount, with the others slated for Monterrey, Mexico, and São Paulo, Brazil. Paramount
unveiled the pizzerias in February as part of a sweeping franchise expansion led by Josh Silverman, who was brought aboard last fall as president of global products and experiences after stints at Disney, Marvel, and Mattel. Silverman described the restaurants as part of a broader push to extend the Turtles brand across consumer products and location-based entertainment.
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| Photo credit: Santa Monica Daily Press |
The Third Street Promenade opening marks something of a homecoming for the franchise in Santa Monica. Ahead of the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in August 2023, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies staged a 10-day immersive pop-up experience on both coasts, with the Los Angeles installation drawing more than 16,900 visitors.
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| Photo credit: Santa Monica Daily Press |
That experience, produced by NVE, invited guests to explore themed environments modeled on the fictional underground world of the four turtle brothers — including training zones, a recreation of the Turtles' sewer lair, and an exclusive on-site merchandise shop. Across both the Los Angeles and New York installations, the pop-up drew more than 35,000 guests total.
Pizza Power! First Official ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Pizzeria Opens in L.A.
"There’s a term we use: ‘new-stalgia,'" explains a top Paramount exec of the Santa Monica project, which exults in the aesthetics of the 1987 animated series. "It’s new for kids but nostalgic for adults, often their parents.”
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| The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizzeria in Santa Monica, California | Photo courtesy Ron De Angelis |
The IP-oriented restaurateur Andy Nguyen, who’s previously opened concepts based on Hello Kitty and Sonic the Hedgehog, has spent more than a decade chasing his “dream project”: producing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizzeria. After years of indifference and then false starts with the rights holders at Viacom, he’s now partnered under the new ownership at Paramount — which has a pair of TMNT franchise films slated for 2027 and 2028 — on a themed restaurant, which debuts June 20 along Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. “I finally got that green light,” he says, seemingly himself still shell-shocked.
Nguyen’s bodacious vision is a restorationist adaptation, ignoring the live-action amphibians of more recent years in favor of exulting in the aesthetics of the 1987 animated series. “I call it the ‘Millennial Turtles,’” he says. “Those original cartoons, the way they were drawn, there’s a sense of fun that just brings you happiness.”
Josh Silverman, Paramount’s president of global products and experiences, refers to the 1987 series’ look as “a keystone piece of creative” for the franchise and notes that “there’s a term we use: ‘new-stalgia.’ It’s new for kids but nostalgic for adults, often their parents.”
Silverman’s division has 32 Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. locations. (Paramount distributed Forrest Gump.) The studio’s planning to open two more TMNT pizzerias by the end of the year, in Sao Paolo and Mexico City. “They’re spiritually the same, also based on the ’87 animation.”
Paramount’s core belief is that brand extensions — including, in the current vernacular, immersive experiences such as restaurants — can’t be exploitative. “It needs to be a brand deposit, not a brand withdrawal,” as Silverman puts it.
To that end, Nguyen brought in pizza consultant Angelo Womack to advise on the pies. “If we weren’t going to be in New York, we needed a New York pizzeria chef to help us build a true product,” he says, adding: “We don’t want this to be a novelty gimmick. This place can’t just look cool. The food is the surprise element. It’s good. We know we need to beat expectations. Otherwise, fans crush you.”
A vet of the acclaimed Brooklyn pizzeria Roberta’s, Womack explains that the challenge with this project is “wanting to please everyone from the pizza snobs to the Ninja Turtles snobs — excuse me, maybe we call them both ‘connoisseurs.’” The resultant Santa Monica TMNT pizzeria is most inspired by New York City cult favorites Scarr’s, Mama’s TOO! and Brooklyn DOP. (The Shredder’s Revenge, with its spicy mix of pepperoni, jalapenos and Mike’s Hot Honey, is an ode to the Scarr’s staple Hotboi.)
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| Pies at the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizzeria in Santa Monica, California. |
Under Womack, the cheese is Grande, the tomatoes are California Stanislaus, the flour from King Arthur and the local water pH-balanced to match Manhattan. There’s no single leaf of basil on a slice. “I couldn’t see Donatello eating that,” he says, “and kids don’t want to see it.” But bright green basil-infused olive oil does feature in the TCRI pie. “It looks like TCRI glowing ooze,” Womack says, referring to the radioactive mutagen from the TMNT universe.
A key creative challenge was thinking through the cheese. “The pizza affiliated with the Turtles is a cartoon pizza,” Womack says. “It’s a super-stretchy pull. Does that make good New York-style pizza? Not really. Pizza is about the balance of tomato and cheese. In real life, you don’t want it to be overloaded with cheese.” That said, he knows there’s an experiential satisfaction for some visitors, no matter the practicality. “So, we’re making an option for guests to cheese it up. If the guest wants it, we want to give it to them.”
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Originally published: June 13, 2026.
