- The defrauded restaurant owner is being a shockingly good sport about the whole thing.
If you’re famous, you’re bound to inspire imitators. A popular Florida pizza joint recently found that out in the hardest and most bizarre possible way.
Roman’s Pizzeria has been serving pies to the residents of Miami Springs for ages. At the same time, however, they’ve been dealing with a strange problem.
People who have never bought pizza from Roman’s have called or even showed up in person to complain about the crime against pizza that the store supposedly served them.
That’s because there’s been an imposter afoot. Jose Marti-Alvarez has allegedly been leeching off Roman’s Pizzeria’s success for years, distributing deceptively similar flyers — but with a different phone number.
Customers who thought they were ordering pizza from Roman’s would instead get one from Marti-Alvarez. And those pies were often prepared with the wrong ingredients, falsely priced, or even completely uncooked.
Now, Marti-Alvarez has been arrested and is facing felony fraud charges. Yet, the owner of Roman’s regrets having had to call the cops — instead, he only wishes the defrauder had opened a proper pizzeria to compete with him legitimately.
The Fake Roman
Jesus Roman is the proud owner of Roman’s Pizzeria at 391 N Royal Poinciana Blvd in Miami Springs, Florida. For four decades, he’s been preparing pizza for hungry locals, and with success — his pizza joint boasts at least four stars on every platform we bothered to look at.
Yet, maintaining those good ratings hasn’t been easy for Roman’s. That’s because of Marti-Alvarez, who has been undermining his business.
The 55-year-old has allegedly been cooking and serving subpar pizza under Roman’s name for years. Well, not exactly under Roman’s name, as the flyers he has hung on hotel room doors near the Miami International Airport have read “Roman Pizzeria.”
Otherwise, however, the flyers have been virtually indistinguishable, riding on Roman’s good reputation.
However, the pizzas Marti-Alvarez has served have done nothing to maintain that reputation. The pies have typically been prepared wrong or Marti-Alvarez has charged his customers more than he was supposed to.
And sometimes, he would deliver a pizza that hadn’t even been completely cooked.
Of course, by the time the customer realizes they’ve been had, Marti-Alvarez was always long gone. So, where do the now hangry people go to complain?
Why, to the real Roman’s, of course.
Angry at the Wrong Guy
That’s how Mr. Roman found out that someone was abusing his pizzeria’s name. He started to get calls and even face-to-face visits from furious customers who demanded he refund their purchase.
Of course, there was nothing for him to refund because the people had never done business with Roman’s.
“Sometimes they show up upset here to the store, claiming, ‘Where’s the food?’ We have to explain to them that it’s not us,” Roman told Local 10 News.
Not all “customers” have been understanding, though. Over the years, they’ve left plenty of one-star reviews on Yelp and other sites, while bombarding the Better Business Bureau with unfounded complaints.
Then came the straw that broke Mr. Roman’s back. After an after-hours confrontation with a particularly irate fraud victim, he started fearing for his safety.
Finally, Roman went to the cops. His timing was fortunate, as the police were just looking into a person who had been trespassing in airport hotels to distribute flyers.
Surprise, surprise — that was Marti-Alvarez.
Welcoming Competition
Ultimately, however, the cops didn’t arrest Marti-Alvarez because of his fraud scheme. Instead, they slapped handcuffs on him after he reportedly ran over a person.
The manager of one of the airport hotels had caught Marti-Alvarez at her establishment and confronted him. As the man was leaving, he allegedly hit the hotel manager with his car.
That has earned him an aggravated battery charge. He’s also facing a charge of an organized scheme to defraud.
All’s well that end’s well, right? Perhaps, but Roman wishes things didn’t go down this way.
“In a way, I’m glad, because hopefully it will stop. I didn’t want him to get arrested, but that’s something that had to happen to stop him,” he said.
However, he regrets police had to be involved. Instead, he wishes Marti-Alvarez had challenged him through healthy, fair competition.
“I would like him to not use my restaurant’s name and if he uses his right name, then do the right food. He could have his own business. … There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Roman.
“We’re all here to work and get by. I appreciate that. I would like that.”