“The business was for sale,” Lamb said.“I bought it so I could keep my job because I like my job.” Before working at Pizza Rita, Lamb never had a job in the food industry.
Lamb never dreamed of owning a pizza joint or any other restaurant for that matter. “Colin is going to do well because he loves Ellensburg so much,” Ritter said. When she left, Ritter made Lamb the manager of the Ellensburg shop.Īfter deciding to go to nursing school, Ritter chose to put the Ellensburg storefront up for sale, and Lamb opted to buy the store himself. Ritter lives in Spokane, where she manages Pizza Rita’s four other stores. He met previous owner Rita Ritter during his freshman year. Lamb graduated from Central in 2009 with a Bachelor’s in anthropology and is now a graduate student in resource management. Many may have seen Lamb around town delivering pizzas in his green, retro Volkswagen van. “It’s not nearly as Italian as Rita,” new owner Colin Lamb, who has worked at Pizza Rita for two and a half years said. The easiest change to identify in the restaurant will be its name: Pizza Colin. The downtown storefront and menu will remain, and pepperoncinis will even be included in orders now. Although local pizzeria Pizza Rita changed ownership on Feb.