Untouchables Still Going Strong After 20 Years

In this economy, a business needs to have drawing power to stay afloat.

And a business that has remained open through not only the recent recession, but also hardships like road construction and the closings of neighboring businesses must really have some special ingredients.

For on Clearwater Largo Road, the main ingredients are its excellent food and outstanding customer service, which has helped the owners form a close bond with their customers.

“We have customers who come all the way from Tampa, from across the Sunshine Skyway bridge,” owner Joanne Barnes said. “They may come in once a month instead of once a week, but they still come.

“We try to make them feel like family.”

After moving to Seminole from Chicago 25 years ago, Barnes and her husband, David, noticed something was lacking in their new hometown: good pizza.

While working in a restaurant on the beach, a friend who wanted to invest in a restaurant approached them about becoming partners, and the couple jumped at the chance.

Shortly after taking over what was Sonny’s in 1990, the Barneses bought out their partner, and soon the true Untouchables was born, complete with old-time Chicago mob memorabilia and fresh, homemade food crafted from secret family recipes. 

Twenty-one years later, Untouchables is still serving Chicago-style pizza and killer calzones to customers from Largo and beyond, and the walls have become lined with newspaper articles and pictures of the Windy City, many donated by patrons.

“We have people who have been coming in since we first opened,” Joanne said recently. “Sometimes they’ll bring us something that we can put up on the walls, and they always like to check out what we’ve added to the decor.”

One such couple, retired postal workers Ron and Peggy Eichelman of Seminole, happened to be dining that day, and they were effusive in their praise of the restaurant.

“We’ve been coming here for 20 years, and they’ve always been good to us,” Ron Eichelman said of the Barnes family. 

“We used to come in for lunch while we were on our postal routes, and they would have our food ready for us because they knew we only had 30 minutes to eat,” Peggy Eichelman added.

"You don't get that kind of service at restaurants anymore," she said.

That kind of customer service, plus a strong family bond, is what has made Untouchables so successful for so long. Both of the couple's daughters, Nicole Mancusi and Samantha Barnes, work in the family business.

“I graduated college with a degree in criminal science, but I wanted to work here,” said Nicole, the eldest daughter. “I grew up in this place; it’s the only job I’ve ever had. “

“I’m a people person … and the regular customers who come in here love the fact that I know what they want to eat the minute the step in the door,” she said.

Although great customer service and a family-like atmosphere have helped Untouchables become a Largo landmark, there is another important ingredient that has kept people coming though the doors for more than 20 years. 

“They have the best pizza in the world,” Ron Eichelman said.