Table 87 Pizza - Shark Tank Update

Authentic Brooklyn pizza heritage met entrepreneurial ambition when Tom Cucco, a native New Yorker who had mastered the craft of traditional New York-style pizza at his Carroll Gardens restaurant located at the address that would give his brand its name, walked into the Tank with a revolutionary challenge: proving that a flash-frozen pizza could taste like it was just pulled from a coal-fired oven in the heart of the borough. His Brooklyn restaurant at 87 Atlantic Avenue had already established itself as a destination for genuine New York pizza enthusiasts, but Cucco recognized that demand for authentic New York pizza extended far beyond the people who could physically make the trip to Carroll Gardens, inspiring him to perfect a flash-freezing process that captured the flavor, crust texture, and freshness of his restaurant-made pies within moments of emerging from his ovens.

Seeking $200,000 for 10% equity and valuing Table 87 at $2 million, Tom entered the Tank with samples that showcased the remarkable quality his process preserved, demonstrating that mass-market frozen pizza brands had set the bar unreasonably low by offering cardboard-like crusts and artificial flavors rather than the chewy, bubbly, genuinely delicious New York pizza that millions of transplanted New Yorkers and pizza lovers across the country craved but couldn't access. His business model recognized a fundamental gap in the frozen pizza market between inadequate mass-market offerings and the genuine article, positioning Table 87 as the premium solution for consumers willing to pay a fair price for authentic quality-pizza sourced from a real Brooklyn restaurant rather than a factory production line that had never tasted a properly fermented dough.

The pitch encapsulated everything adventurous food entrepreneurs dream of: a product with genuine quality, a compelling origin story tied to real New York culinary heritage, and a scalable business model that could bring subway-authentic quality to dinner tables in Dallas, Denver, and beyond, while maintaining the handcrafted standards that separated Table 87 from the frozen food section's mediocrity.

Lori Greiner emerged as the decisive investor after the sharks sampled Tom's pizza and experienced firsthand the quality gap between Table 87 and conventional frozen options, with Lori recognizing the brand's potential to capture premium positioning in a crowded category by leading with authenticity and provenance rather than marketing gimmicks, ultimately extending an offer of $250,000 for 20% equity-$50,000 more capital than Tom originally requested, in exchange for double the equity stake. Despite the increased equity ask, Tom's acceptance reflected his understanding that Lori's QVC platform and extensive retail relationships could crack open distribution opportunities that would have taken years to build organically, giving Table 87 the runway to reach the critical mass of retail accounts needed for a premium frozen food brand to achieve sustainable profitability.

The post-Tank trajectory validated both Tom's product and the investment thesis, as Table 87 expanded into major grocery chains and specialty retailers across the country while building a devoted following among both transplanted New Yorkers seeking their hometown comfort food and pizza enthusiasts who recognized the stark difference between genuine Brooklyn craftsmanship and factory-produced alternatives. The company built distribution in premium grocers and specialty food retailers, with each new account reinforcing the brand's positioning as authentic New York pizza available coast to coast, while the Lori partnership opened QVC airings that introduced the product to millions of home shoppers who had never experienced the quality difference firsthand.

We found that Table 87 achieved approximately $6 million in annual revenue as of recent estimates, operating from a facility that maintained the Brooklyn heritage and quality standards that had made Cucco's original restaurant a neighborhood institution, while continuing to expand the product line beyond classic rounds into new styles and sizes that broadened market appeal without diluting the authenticity that remained the brand's most valuable asset, and our latest research shows the business continues to thrive as a successfully scaled direct extension of genuine New York pizza culture.