Some good news for the denizens of my little river town. I saw a sign on a building downtown announcing the return of Orlando's Pizza. Orlando's was the original pizza shop here. It went out of business about four years ago. As Orlando's set the benchmark for pizza among East Liverpudlians, its absence has been sorely felt.
Of course we now have all the major chains, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's, it has always been the Mom and Pop pizza places that not only know the market better than anyone, but serve the best quality food. East Liverpool ain't Brooklyn. We are not a pizza Mecca. But we know what we like and, damn it, what we like is Orlando's.
When the old man ran the pizza shop, slices (Orlando's serves a Sicilian style pizza baked in big rectangular baking pans. 28 slices, 4x7) cost the princely sum of $.10. They came with two, maybe three slices of pepperoni and cheese. Other toppings were not available. Orlando had a .45 caliber handgun on the butcher block table he rolled out the dough upon. The gun was liberally dusted with flour and probably would have exploded if he ever had the chance to actually fire it. There was no delivery service, and no telephone. If you wanted pizza, you went to the shop and stood in line. When you got there, you were asked how many slices you wanted. Nothing was written down, there was no Point of Sale computer with pertinent information available. Just Chad's, Orlando's assistant, steel trap memory.
Orlando would quiz you, if you were, like me, a precocious teenager. "What's the only man made structure visible from space?" Answer the Great Wall of China and you might get an extra slice or two in the cardboard box. If you brought in your date and she smiled his way, maybe extra pepperoni, maybe an extra slice.
Orlando, a swarthy man, would labor hard making his pies. Jet black hair slicked back with a dollop of VO5, a Camel unfiltered dangling from his lip and an occasional ball of sweat dropping from his nose and into the sauce made the experience complete. Of course, if a cigarette ash dropped onto your order, you shrugged it off because the pizza was so good.
Crispy crust with minimal pizza bones (the crust at the perimeter) and the distinct aroma of plenty of oregano was Orland's stock in trade.
After so many years without genuine Orlando's pizza, and all the new competition that has sprung up since he first opened in 1953, the new proprietors had better remember to bring one thing to the new operation. They better bring Orlando's back the way we remember it.
