Mike Magner ’07 always had a funny feeling he’d someday own Pride’s Deli & Pizzeria.
Every time Magner walked into that previously quiet little sandwich shop around the corner from Endicott, the thought of possibly owning it flooded his mind. He even became friends with the owner, who promised to sell to Magner when the time came.
But after graduating from Endicott with a B.S. in business administration with a concentration in marketing, Magner moved to Boston to sell real estate.
“I came back up to visit Beverly a year or two after school, and I walked into Pride’s and my friend who owned the place said, ‘Mike, I just wanted to let you know, we just sold the business,’” recalled Magner. “And I said, ‘You always told me you’d sell it to me!’”
Magner was heartbroken but laughed it off and drove back to Boston. Then, when the stock market crashed in 2008, Magner began thinking about his next professional chapter. That’s when the phone rang.
“A couple weeks later, he called me and said, ‘Mike, the guy backed out of the deal. Is there any way you’d be interested?’”
Despite having no restaurant experience or money for the purchase, Magner worked out a seller financing deal with the owner and made the sale happen.
He didn’t even have money to purchase tables or chairs for his new restaurant, so when the late Endicott College President Dr. Richard E. Wylie walked into Pride’s during those first days in business, Magner never imagined that a connection with his alma mater would be the key to success.
With foldup tables and chairs in tow, Wylie visited every afternoon for a sandwich. The borrowed furniture remained in the shop for five years while the shop began making money.
Meanwhile, Magner turned to his Italian grandmother for the best recipes possible. Magner and his team learned to perfect a slice of pizza, making dough from scratch and breading chicken cutlets.
“Old Italians don’t measure. Everything’s by taste, feel, and touch,” he said. “We had a group trying to learn how to make grandma’s meatballs and sauce. It was something I’ll never forget.”
Magner remembers Pride’s opening night like it was yesterday. That evening, the shop received a 10-pie order from the Endicott football team. With only one oven at the time, the team scrambled to complete the request. Magner worried they might have to shut the place down; one of his pizza makers even quit and walked out.
Now, 10 pizzas would be no problem for the shop, which churns out hundreds of pizzas on a regular Friday night. With his crew of Endicott students and his wife Victoria by his side, Pride’s has grown from just a late-night college pizza spot to a fixture in the Beverly Farms community.
For Magner, everything goes back to Endicott.
“We’ve got about 10 or 12 Endicott students that work for us currently, and I’ve had hundreds of Endicott students that have worked for me over the years,” he said.
Pride’s receives a lot of business from the College, including late-night pizza runs on the weekends, and serving food at the concession stands at Raymond J. Bourque Arena and Hempstead Stadium, with many of the same coaches, students, and staff showing up at the shop consistently.
“It’s been about 16 years since I purchased the business, and we just gave birth to the next generation Gull—Charlotte Patricia Magner,” he said.
During one of the most important moments of his life, Endicott was also there. When Victoria was giving birth to Charlotte in February 2024, Magner was telling one of the nurses about his shop. She knew the location immediately—it was her “favorite place in the world.” Even better: She was a current nursing student at the College.
“I haven’t figured out which class Charlotte will be yet,” said Magner, “but she’s definitely going to be a future Gull.”