Clara Cavalli-Chiappardi, owner of Love Life and Pizza and a first-generation Italian-American based in Plano, grew up with a deep appreciation for food’s ability to create connection. Some of her earliest memories were on a small balcony in the Avellino in the Campagna region of Italy, where she would help crush fresh tomatoes and prepare dough alongside her father’s cousin.
“It was the best pizza I’ve ever had,” she says. “And I was just a little girl.”
That memory became a seed. Even as she studied fine arts and pursued a career in graphic design and art direction, the love of food stayed with her.
“Food was always emotional for me. I didn’t realize it would become my entire life,” she says.
In 2006, Cavalli-Chiappardi and her husband began exploring pizza as more than a meal but as a form of art and a lifestyle.
Two years later, they opened their first restaurant, Cavalli Pizza, while Cavalli-Chiappardi was pregnant with their first child. Months into business, her husband was diagnosed with leukemia. Pregnancy, cancer treatment schedules and operating a new restaurant were a daily juggling act.
“I was navigating motherhood, running a business and sitting in hospital rooms,” she says. “It pushed me to the edge.”
They later moved to the Northeast and opened another restaurant, which Cavalli-Chiappardi says was well-received. In 2015, her husband got sick again. He died the following year.
“That was the moment everything changed,” she says.
She sold Cavalli Pizza in 2016 after the death of her husband and continued running Brick + Wood in Connecticut until 2021, when she sold everything and decided to return to Texas. Despite the heartache and relocation, she was still not ready to give up the food service industry entirely. She revived an old idea they had started years ago — a pizza truck — and named it Love Life and Pizza.
The name turned into an expression of her own journey, she says: loving what you do, sharing it with the world and ending up happy and fulfilled, despite the painful pages.
Now, Love Life and Pizza, based in Plano, serves the entire DFW area with a wood-fired pizza truck, Italian catering services and gluten-free market. Cavalli-Chiappardi got remarried, and her new husband is now just as obsessed with the venture as she is. Their marriage, she says, gave new life to the truck and all it represents.
“It made me see that any challenge can become something new,” she says.
She is also an ambassador for Women in Pizza, an international organization empowering women across the culinary landscape. Through the network, she’s met entrepreneurs, artisans and chefs who share information, refer one another to employment opportunities and provide encouragement in a profession that often isolates.
“It’s not always the guy who does the work,” Cavalli-Chiappardi says. “Women are given real challenges in this profession, and I want to do my part to change that.”
Community is always at the center of what Cavalli-Chiappardi does, whether that is serving local organizations in Plano or building connections with women she will never meet in person.
“When women are empowered, we all benefit,” she says. Her advice to young women considering doing something of their own is not to wait. “If you believe your vision, move forward. Do it because you care about it, not for the money. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and stay open to learning. Your ideas matter. Your voice belongs here.”
CORRECTION: This article has been amended from its print version to correct the name of the owner and clarify the restaurant’s timeline.
