Tony Ijames is finally opening the pizzeria he almost didn't live to build. The 40-year-old, who nearly died during a 2024 heart attack, is bringing his New York-style Bada Bing Pizzeria to a permanent storefront at 5418 South Saginaw Street in Grand Blanc Township, ending a two-year hiatus since his brief run at the Flint Farmers Market.
Ijames operated Bada Bing at the Flint Farmers Market for about three to four months roughly two years before now, after first testing the concept as a wood-fired pop-up at downtown Flint venues including The Kickback in late 2023, according to a Flint Social Club Facebook post. He launched that market stand in January 2024 with an old-school brick-oven setup and air-flipped dough, telling Flintside he wanted to bring authentic big-city pizza culture to downtown Flint. As MLive reports, Ijames has since fully recovered from the heart attack and is now preparing to reopen with his first brick-and-mortar shop.
Ijames submitted site plans for the restaurant earlier in August, per the same MLive account, and expects construction to begin in a couple of weeks. He's targeting a late September or early October opening for the 1,500-square-foot space inside North Point Commons plaza, which also includes a Dollar General.
A Sopranos Homage With Deep Flint Roots
The pizzeria's name and branding lean into its inspiration from the HBO series The Sopranos, and Ijames shares his first name with the show's fictional lead, Tony Soprano. He grew up in Flint and still lives there, and he started making pizza at age 16 while working at Marco's Pizza — a chain founded in Ohio in 1978 by Italian immigrant Pasquale Giammarco that has since grown to more than 1,300 locations nationwide, according to Wikipedia.
Ijames plans to run the new restaurant with his wife, Annie, and sons Frank and Sean; he has three sons in total, and he told MLive he hopes to eventually pass the business down to his children. It's a family project built on a menu Ijames says will be served as intended, without deletions or substitutions, though the restaurant will make exceptions for customers with allergies.
What's On the Menu, and What's Not
The opening menu will be limited but distinctly New York in style. Bada Bing plans to serve meatball pizza, a calzone or stromboli, breadsticks, a meatball sandwich, additional sandwiches, and at least one pasta dish such as ziti. Sixteen-inch pizzas will run $20 to $25, topped with cup-and-char pepperoni and Grande Cheese — a Wisconsin-based all-natural Italian cheese that Grande Cheese Company engineers specifically for high-heat baking and that is widely favored among independent New York-style pizzaiolos.
True to old-school form, the dough will be aged for three days, and the meatballs and sauce will be made from scratch. There will be no freezer on site and no frozen food served at all. When it opens, Bada Bing will offer takeout only, though Ijames may add tables for dine-in customers down the road, and the rear of the space is planned to include a large open area with pool tables.
Filling a Void Left by Sicily Pizzeria
Bada Bing's return fills a gap left by Sicily Pizzeria, a longtime Saginaw Street institution that served thin-crust pizza and Italian food for more than 40 years before closing during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Wanderlog. That closure left a lasting void in the area's Italian food scene that Ijames has cited as motivation for bringing an East Coast pizza experience back to Genesee County.
The new location also sits directly across the street from Grand Blanc Township's administrative offices at 5371 South Saginaw Street, placing the pizzeria in a high-visibility commercial corridor. That corridor now falls under a local business licensing ordinance the township enacted effective January 1, which governs commercial operations for new businesses like Bada Bing, according to Grand Blanc Township.
Ijames' comeback also fits into a broader regional pattern. Genesee County's food economy includes a dense network of independent pizzerias supported by year-round public markets in Flint and Davison, according to Explore Flint & Genesee. The Flint Farmers Market itself, where Ijames got his start, moved downtown in 2014 with $5.6 million in support from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and now draws roughly 500,000 visitors a year to more than 50 vendors. Whether Bada Bing eventually pursues a liquor license or expands its dine-in seating remains an open question as construction gets underway.
