Photography by Konrad Odhiambo
Shirt/Jacket from Mark Thomas Men’s Apparel

Mario Cardenas may have grown up in Guatemala, but he considers Saratoga his hometown. And after just four years of owning a business here, it’s safe to say that the owner of West Ave Pizza and Chicken is as much a Saratogian as any of us.

Cardenas’ Saratoga story began in 2021, when he bought a little pizza shop on the West Side, and things have only escalated from there. The man is everywhere—slingin’ pizzas and chicken sandwiches not only at his recently expanded West Ave HQ but also at nightclubs, the Saratoga Race Course backstretch, in the Saratoga Springs High School lunchroom, and even backstage at SPAC. When you dine at Osteria Danny, you’ll be eating his focaccia, which he bakes fresh for the Italian restaurant daily. This past summer, you may have seen him zipping around town in a six-seater golf cart or supporting fellow local businesses Solevo, Bailey’s, Tin & Lint, and countless others. 

Since buying West Ave Pizza, Cardenas has worked to make his brand omnipresent—both in Saratoga and the greater Capital Region. He currently provides the food service for a manufacturing plant in Fort Edward, he opened a satellite West Ave Chicken location next to MVP Arena in Albany last year, and he’s teaming up with Eddie F’s to serve West Ave Chicken and Pizza out of the seafood restaurant’s Clifton Park location starting this fall.

So how exactly did a Guatemalan come to serve pizza and fried chicken to everyone and their mother in upstate New York? That story starts back in 1999.

Cardenas first arrived in the Capital Region—Schenectady, specifically—just before the turn of the millennium with his mother, Susana, and sister Jennifer. They’d left their native Guatemala after Susana’s divorce and spent a year in Los Angeles.

“She couldn’t afford to live there,” he says of his mother. “As a single mom with two kids, it was too expensive.”

So, on the recommendation of a friend who lived in the Electric City, Susana moved her family of three there—and got to work. Susana and Jennifer got jobs at Metro 20 Diner, which is now Capital City Diner, and Susana ultimately worked her way up from washing dishes to becoming a chef—a story that now resembles Cardenas’ own.

Cardenas began working at Marino’s Pizza & Restaurant in Schenectady, which was located right across the street from the family’s new home. He was still in his early teens when owner Mario Marino took him under his wing and taught him how to cook.

“He taught me the basics, from chicken parmesan to pizza,” Cardenas says. “That’s when I fell in love with it.”

A few years later, Cardenas took his budding culinary skills to Prima Pizzeria, also in Schenectady, where he had the creative freedom to play around with different kinds of foods like chicken sandwiches and soups. Inspired by American comfort foods that he never got to eat growing up—like Chef Boyardee’s canned classics—Cardenas created his signature ravioli soup. (Little did he know, that very soup would win him Saratoga Chowderfest titles in both 2023 and 2024.)

His knack for both food and people propelled him up the ladder at Prima—first as a cook, and then as a manager. He also helped with two other restaurants owned by the Isopo family, which ran Prima: Anna’s Wood Fired Pizza, which has since closed, and Mario’s Restaurant and Pizzeria in Niskayuna.

Fast-forward to 2021, nearly two decades after Cardenas had arrived in the States—and a pizza shop on Saratoga’s West Avenue was for sale. Cardenas and his family had been wanting to operate their own pizzeria but didn’t have the money to build one from scratch, so they bought the business, which already had pizza-making infrastructure, from the couple who owned it. They couldn’t afford to change the sign out front, so they kept the name West Ave Pizza—and have embraced it wholeheartedly.

The new West Ave Pizza—which is owned by Cardenas, his sister Jennifer, and her husband, Santos Maldonado, and operated by the whole family of 10—began gaining traction when someone from the Saratoga Automobile Museum asked if they would cook for an upcoming event. The family agreed, and their food’s debut at the event made an impression. “People were raving about the food,” Cardenas says. “But they didn’t believe it was from West Ave.”

After that, Cardenas began advertising West Ave, and word began to spread. He formed a partnership with Franklin Community Center that continues to this day, and then, Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy visited. As part of his One Bite Pizza Reviews YouTube series, the notoriously tough critic gave West Ave a 7.3 out of 10, calling it “super fresh” and “good quality.” The review did wonders for raising awareness about the business.

“He brought us right where we needed to be, when we needed him the most,” Cardenas says. To show their thanks, the family created a pizza named after Portnoy—“Dave’s Pie”—that features the ultra-crispy, thin crust the Saratoga superfan is known to love. 

A few months after Portnoy’s visit, chicken came into the picture when West Ave Pizza’s neighbor, Wings Over Saratoga, announced it was going out of business. The owners at the time approached Cardenas about purchasing the space and expanding, but he was hesitant. “Our business had grown, but not big enough to open a second location,” Cardenas says.

But then he realized the space didn’t need to be used for pizza. Reminiscing about his days of making chicken sandwiches at Prima, he jumped on the deal and opened West Ave Chicken. “It blew up,” Cardenas says. “The chicken became more popular than the pizza.”

Then, when Hispanic workers from Saratoga Race Course began coming to the restaurant, Cardenas expanded his offerings again. “They’d ask me, ‘Why don’t you offer some Hispanic food?’ And so, I did,” he says. Inspired by his mother’s recipes—she ran a food stand outside of their home in Guatemala—Cardenas created a secret menu featuring empanadas, pupusas, churrasco, and a Guatemalan twist on the Italian arancini. 

“She didn’t get to see any of this,” he says of Susana, who passed away in 2019 from brain cancer. “That’s why the Guatemalan menu is so important. It’s full circle.”

As is the trend with Cardenas’ endeavors, word spread quickly about the Guatemalan menu, and now it’s offered to all customers. He also knocked the wall down between West Ave Pizza and West Ave Chicken, effectively creating a mini dining hall. “It’s now three restaurants under one roof,” he says. “You have the pizza, the chicken, and the Guatemalan menu.”

That’s not to say that Cardenas doesn’t take his fare on the road regularly.

At the Night Owl on Fridays and Saturdays until 2am, Cardenas offers a late-night menu of pizza, chicken, and birria tacos (a new, and popular, addition). At Putnam Place on Friday evenings, Cardenas’ son—who also has the pizza-making gene and travels to Italy, Las Vegas, and Ohio to compete in pizza competitions on behalf of West Ave—serves up authentic Italian-style pizza under the name aStrada Pizza Co.

For years, headliners of Live Nation concerts at SPAC—including Dave Matthews Band, Shania Twain, and Mumford & Sons—have also been treated to West Ave Pizza, served backstage from Cardenas’ portable “Van Halen” pizza oven, which is signed by Wiz Khalifa and 24kGoldn. (He also has an oven decorated in Louis Vuitton’s iconic print.) But when a Live Nation rep asked him if he’d cook for Phish at Albany’s MVP Arena last year, he hesitated because of the distance between Albany and Saratoga.

“I told them I wished I had a kitchen there,” he says. “With SPAC, if I need to make something and bring it over quickly, I can—it’s only three minutes away. But Albany’s too far to do that.”

After talking with Todd Shapiro—a public relations expert and the owner of nearby Albany War Room—about his dilemma, Cardenas received a call from him the next week. Shapiro informed him that there was a business for sale on South Pearl Street that he might want to check out. So check it out he did, and it was a perfect fit.

The Cardenas family bought the space and opened a new West Ave Chicken location in four days, just in time for the Phish concert. The spot—which serves chicken, Guatemalan food, and breakfast—took off, and a great working relationship formed with Shapiro, who has since enlisted Cardenas’ help in feeding some of his clients.

A lesser-known West Ave partnership is with Irving Tissue, a manufacturer located in Fort Edward. That relationship began when Cardenas’ friend, who works there, mentioned the cafeteria’s caterer was stepping down. Cardenas agreed to step in, and now West Ave preps and transports breakfast, salads, and sandwiches daily.

But beyond feeding employees, public figures, and celebrities, Cardenas is committed to giving back to the community, which he credits for his businesses’ success. “Especially as an immigrant, it’s intimidating to start your own business because you don’t know if the community or officials will support you,” he says. “But when we opened, we got so much support. So giving back to the people who supported us is a must. I owe them even more than what I give them.”

To that end, West Ave has donated at-home pizza parties to auctions for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, Saratoga Automobile Museum and, later this year, Double H Ranch. The restaurant also hosts annual Christmas and Easter parties, donating the proceeds to organizations including Franklin Community Center and the New York Race Track Chaplaincy. Plus, Cardenas feeds the track’s backstretch workers every week during racing season, and this year even donated pizza for an end-of-season backstretch party with James & Sons Tobacconists.

And the hits keep coming. West Ave caters summer camps and sporting events, in addition to supporting local schools. Last year, when Saratoga Springs High School closed its cafeteria to remodel the kitchen, the restaurant provided food for students all winter long. And this past summer, West Ave delivered chicken every Thursday for the Saratoga Springs City School District’s summer food truck program, which provides free meals to kids during the school break. It’s a cause that hits home for Cardenas. “A lot of the kids don’t get to eat if they don’t go to school,” he says. “And I can relate to that, because that was me. So I like to help out however I can.”

While Cardenas has become known for all he does in the community, it’s his pizza that got him there. Made with an easy-to-digest sourdough base and small farm–sourced ingredients, his slices have earned West Ave several dozens of awards over the years. “I never wanted to be known for philanthropy,” he says. “I wanted to be known for making good pizza.”

Luckily, in a world that isn’t so black and white, it’s easy to recognize Cardenas for both. And for the opportunity to make good pizza while feeding the community he loves, the Saratogian is grateful.

“This is like a dream,” he says. “Actually, it’s beyond my dreams. To have a pizzeria this successful for my family to work at…I never dreamed of it.”