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Alleycat's Pizza

Taiwanese pizza chain

Alleycat's Pizza, usually referred to simply as Alleycat's, is a pizzeria chain restaurant that started in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2004. Started in the tiny basement level of a building on Lishui Street, it had expanded to twelve locations throughout Taipei. As of 2023 there is only one remaining location in Taipei, at 1914 Huashan 1914 Creative Park.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2004Founded1

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街貓批薩 Alleycat's Pizza - panoramio
Photo: lienyuan lee, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

Alleycat's Pizza, usually referred to simply as Alleycat's, is a pizzeria chain restaurant that started in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2004. Started in the tiny basement level of a building on Lishui Street, it had expanded to twelve locations throughout Taipei. As of 2023 there is only one remaining location in Taipei, at 1914 Huashan 1914 Creative Park.2

The story

Alleycat's was started in 2004 by Alan Pontes, a South African expatriate with Italian family roots. The dearth of Italian pizza available in Taiwan gave Pontes the idea of starting his own pizza restaurant, featuring a masonry oven. It addressed a long-felt need among the expat population for more traditional pizza varieties (as opposed to the locally popular toppings based on East Asian cuisine). A second location opened in Neihu in early 2006, quickly followed by a third in the former VFW post building in Tienmu.

The original Lishui Street basement location was closed in 2006 when a street-level space in an adjacent building became available. Twelve new Alleycat's locations were added, before most of the locations closed with the exception of one restaurant remaining in the Taipei area. In 2007, Pontes briefly left Taiwan, and the chain was sold to Mark Thomas. Pontes returned to Taiwan in 2008, and started a new restaurant, Yuma Southwest Grill. Yuma Southwest Grill closed its doors for business the following year.

From Wikipedia’s article on Alleycat's Pizza, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 2004Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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