A Brookland carryout run by two returning citizens has drawn more than 170,000 Instagram followers with oxtail pizza, jerk chicken slices and a menu rooted in Black culinary traditions.

Today's Pizza, on 12th Street NE, is co-owned by Aqil Baker, 60, and Kwabena "Shahir" Nkrumah. Both are returning citizens who served lengthy prison sentences for crimes committed when they were younger. Baker was released in 2013 after 18 years. A mutual friend introduced the pair at their mosque, and they began looking for business opportunities together.

The chance came in December 2021, when Baker's wife learned the owners of a pizzeria next to her real estate brokerage were selling. Baker and Nkrumah took over the shop, The 51st reported in a profile published Sept. 16.

The menu changed after the owners brought in Mama's Boiz, a catering company run by brothers Jerome and Idris McIntyre, to lead the kitchen. Idris McIntyre, who also served 18 years in federal prison, met Nkrumah while incarcerated and quit his full-time job about two years ago to cook at the shop full time. Together, the co-owners and kitchen staff have spent more than 40 years behind bars.

The breakthrough arrived when D.C. food reviewer Big Schlim suggested oxtail as a pizza topping. After Mama's Boiz developed the recipe, Schlim posted a TikTok video of himself trying it. Nkrumah said the response was immediate.

"It spread like wildfire," Nkrumah told The 51st. "People were coming from all over and posting us all over social media."

The shop's menu now includes seafood slices, crab-stuffed egg rolls, chicken wing combos and a specialty pizza topped with fries, chicken tenders and mumbo sauce. All items are halal and pork-free, reflecting the co-owners' Islamic faith. Popular items cost upward of $20, which the team attributes to the cost of fresh ingredients.

Baker grew the social media audience by recording customers trying slices and tagging influencers as collaborators on posts. The shop has spent little to nothing on marketing, Nkrumah said.

Beyond the kitchen, the team runs Monday cooking classes for neighborhood kids through Brothers Against Drugs, Jail, and Murder, a nonprofit connected to Mama's Boiz. They also host workshops aimed at steering young people away from the mistakes the owners made.

Baker told The 51st the team is "giving back to the communities that we once ravaged and tore apart" and trying to make a difference with local youth.

The shop plans to partner with D.C.'s Department of Parks and Recreation to expand those workshops to Turkey Thicket Recreation Center, at 1100 Michigan Ave. NE in Brookland. No date for that partnership has been announced.

Today's Pizza has also opened a satellite location at Sycamore & Oak, the all-Black-owned retail hub at the St. Elizabeths East Campus in Congress Heights. That 23,000-square-foot space opened in June 2023 with 13 Black-owned businesses.

On a weekday afternoon in early September, Baker handed out small bowls of apple cobbler cheesecake to customers waiting for their orders. The kitchen was developing a new seafood platter with strawberry mango jerk sauce and a peach cobbler cinnamon roll.

Nkrumah said he hopes to franchise the concept into a national chain. McIntyre, meanwhile, has his eye on the next addition to the menu: breakfast.