Franky’s Pizza and Delicatessen went to Las Vegas and came back a winner.

Last week, Ben Hoover, owner of the Warren restaurant, competed in the International Pizza Challenge, held in conjunction with the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas.

Franky’s finished first in the subdivision of best Sicilian-style pizza and fourth overall among about 70 competitors in the pan division, which includes several thick-crust pizza styles. It was his second time competing at the event. More than 750 pizzamakers from around the world competed in the different categories at the multi-day challenge.

“You’re fighting against the Detroit (style pizza) guys, the deep dish guys, the grandma styles, the Roman styles,” Hoover said. “First place Sicilian sounds great. That’s really cool. To me, it actually means more to get fourth in the pan division.”

Last year, he entered the competition with his spicy pepperoni pie, a staple of the carryout restaurant’s menu.

“I thought, let me run something middle of the plate and kind of calibrate, see how the competition goes, see what I’m up against,” he said.

“It’s really all over the place. There’s guys doing caviar and gold flake and Japanese wagyu. There’s guys doing plain sheets. So it’s really a shot in the dark as far as what people are going to be interested in.

“The real challenge is just seeing if you can put it together on site. I’m out of my regular kitchen, I don’t have my regular tools, and all these people are running around. It’s a little bit of luck and a little bit of planning.”

This time he tried something new, what’s referred to in the pizza game as an “upside-down Sicilian,” which means the sauce goes on top of the cheese layer. That sauce was inspired by the Sunday sauce of Italian family dinners, a tomato sauce that braises for hours with house-made pork-and-beef meatballs and mild Italian sausage.

“It’s a super hearty umami bomb, a super meaty sort of ragu that goes on top of your cheese, and then it gets hit with a seasoned Italian bread crumbs, Pecorino Romano and fresh basil, and that’s all on top of our normal dough that we produce in the store every day,” Hoover said.

Not surprisingly, Hoover added the award-winning pizza to his menu this week.

Coming home with first place honors was nice, but Hoover said spending time with other pizza makers was just as satisfying.

“I’m still a new kid on the block, and to get into a room with a couple hundred guys who are as passionate as I am, and who live lifestyles like I do, just to have an opportunity to get to chat with those people is great,” he said. “You would expect people to be playing their cards close to their chest at a competition, but it’s the exact opposite. Everybody wants to talk about everything that they’ve got going on. It’s really just a huge creative overload, getting to see all these guys who love what I love, and get to bounce ideas with them.”

Franky’s opened in 2024 with a pizza style inspired by the half-sheet pizzas Hoover grew up eating that are ubiquitous in the Mahoning Valley, as well as the Sicilian-style pizzas that he found in New York when he was at culinary school. Those thick-crust squares were available, but they took a backseat to the oversized, thin-crust slices folks commonly refer to as New York-style pizza. Hoover put those pies front and center.

“I think Sicilian is sort of an unsung hero, and I do believe that it’s on its way up,” he said. “There’s plenty of stuff out there for everybody to find what they like, so I hope to see Sicilians continue to get its footing. That was the reason we decided we’re only going to sell Sicilians. That’s all I want to sell. That’s all I want to do.”

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com