Local “best of” awards are often reader-voted popularity contests, which is exactly why it’s worth paying attention when a relatively new restaurant location wins one against longer-established competitors. That’s what happened when CV Independent named Giuseppes Restaurants as part of its Best of Coachella Valley list for 2025–2026, a recognition that also led to a feature segment on KESQ’s Eye on the Desert.
A Newer Location, an Established Name
The award applies to a business that’s been part of the Coachella Valley dining scene since 2008, when Joe and Sue Funkey opened their first pizzeria in Cathedral City. But the specific Palm Desert location, inside the Marriott Shadow Ridge Vacation Club, is actually the newest of the family’s three restaurants, having opened well after the original Cathedral City spot and the Palm Springs expansion. That distinction matters for how the award should be read: it’s not recognition for a single standout location riding on opening-week novelty, but for a brand that’s built its reputation gradually, one location at a time, across nearly two decades.
What the Recognition Is Actually Based On
CV Independent’s Best of Coachella Valley categories are reader-nominated, which means the award reflects sustained local support rather than a single food critic’s opinion or a paid placement. For a restaurant to win that kind of vote, it generally needs a steady base of repeat local customers, not just a strong opening month of curious first-time visitors.
For Giuseppes, that support tracks back to a fairly specific identity in an otherwise crowded market for italian restaurant Palm Desert searches. Palm Desert has no shortage of Northern Italian trattorias serving similar menus of pasta and classic entrées. Giuseppes’ Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, made-in-house pasta program, and marinara sauce prepared fresh daily give it a clearer point of differentiation than most of its competitors, which likely made it an easier restaurant for regulars to specifically remember and nominate when the award ballot came around.
The KESQ feature that followed the award gave the Funkey family a chance to walk through that identity on camera, tracing the business back to Joe and Sue’s original Cathedral City pizzeria and explaining how the current three-location footprint across the Coachella Valley came together over time.
Why Local Awards Like This Are Worth Paying Attention To
Unlike national “best restaurant” rankings that rarely account for smaller regional markets, valley-specific awards like CV Independent’s tend to reflect what residents are actually eating on a regular basis, rather than where visitors go once during a single Coachella Valley trip. For a family-owned business competing against Palm Desert’s dense field of established Italian restaurants along El Paseo and beyond, several of which have been operating far longer, winning that recognition is a stronger signal of durable local reputation than a raw review count or star average alone.
Planning a Visit
The Palm Desert location is open for lunch, dinner, happy hour, and weekend brunch, giving guests more ways to experience the award-winning menu than a typical dinner-only Italian restaurant. Lunch runs daily from 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM, dinner service runs into the evening seven days a week, and the weekend brunch, a genuine rarity for an Italian kitchen, runs Saturday and Sunday mornings. Whether the goal is trying the deep-dish that won over Chicago transplants or working through the house-made pasta menu, all of it is available across every one of those service windows, not walled off to a single “signature dinner” seating.
Giuseppes Restaurant and Pizzeria on Shadow Ridge Road
9002 Shadow Ridge Rd, Palm Desert, CA 92211, United States
