PETOSKEY — Petoskey’s first pizza shop, which opened in 1966 at 222 E. Mitchell St., has had about five owners in its more than 50 years of business. Current owners and life-long Petoskey residents Earl and Ambre Flynn are celebrating 10 years of owning the business.

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Earl, who also works as a teacher and coach for the Petoskey school district, was a Mighty Fine employee as a high school student. His old boss, Bill Schmidt, contacted him 10 years ago and asked if he would be interested in taking over the business.

“I wanted to take over a pizza place,” Earl said. “And then Bill called me up, and it being this one here that's been here since ‘66, it was a no brainer for me.”

Earl’s wife, Ambre, grew up around pizza, as her father owned the Little Caesars in town.

“I never thought I'd be working pizza again,” Ambre said. “And my husband was like, ‘Hey, you want to own a pizza store?’ I was like, ‘Not really.' He (said), ‘Yeah, I do,’ so I (said) ‘Alright, let's try it.’ Though, it's been awesome.”

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Like with many new business owners, Earl said it was difficult at first working at the school during the day and Mighty Fine at night, but now that they have built up a reliable staff, his workload has gotten much more manageable.

Part of that staff is the Flynn’s four children, Lily, Riley, Bradley and Garrett. Their oldest son Garrett helps manage the store and Earl said he hopes one of them will take it over eventually.

“When we first took over the kids were young and (we were) just trying to teach them a work ethic. To get in here and do the things that they have to do to be successful,” Earl said.

Part of taking over the store was inheriting the original pizza recipe from 1966, which Earl and Ambre have stuck to in order to keep the pizza that so many are nostalgic for.

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“The reason I took over wasn't to make money,” Earl said. “Obviously you do want to try to, but at the same time, it's just trying to maintain what Mighty Fine is, as far as the ingredients, the freshness, all this, that and the other thing, that's more important. And giving our employees an opportunity to flourish as well and make a decent living.”

Ambre said one of her favorite parts of owning Mighty Fine is having customers that come in to grab a slice of their childhood or relive memories of visiting Petoskey. However, she credits their year-round success to the locals.

“The community really supports us all through the winter,” Ambre said. “You know, we have a lot of business during the summer with people that come up here, seasonally, but during the winter, we just have some really awesome clientele that keep coming back, so they keep us running through the winter too. (If) we didn't have that then we probably wouldn't still be open.”

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Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey 

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Owners of historic downtown business celebrate 10 years