Dino's Pizza Shop, based in Newport News, Virginia, is a family-owned-and-operated restaurant that has served the Denbigh community with friendly, quality service since 1972. For more than 40 years, From small beginnings to big flavors, my father Gaspare Merendino (AKA Dino) left his town of Carini, Italy. This was where my father's grandmother taught him all there was to know about baking it was here he found his love for pizza. With the dream of opening his own pizza shop, he left Italy. In the August of 1969, Dino opened his first pizza shop in the Langley Square Shopping Center, which stayed open until 1985. In 1972, he opened Dino's Pizza Shop in Denbigh, Newport News, VA. It was a local favorite from the beginning. Children lined up by the front window with fascinated eyes, glued to watching the pizzas being tossed into the air. Mark Anaya, the shop's manager for over 40 years, was often call, Dino.