Connecticut Restaurant Confidential: Strange Stories, Odd Orders, + Twisted Tales in the Industry Vol. 2: Pizzerias

It was about time this ridiculous, limited (but slowly working on more) series returned to bring you more of the weird, bizarre, and funny tales in the restaurant industry.

And while edition number one was a hodgepodge of stories from chefs that you know in the general area, this version has a focus…

PIZZERIAS!

This one’s got a few longer stories that I promise are worth reading, a Wu Tang sighting, one video of a chef busting his ass, and plenty of weird customer orders.

And if you’re wondering what volume three might look like, we’re hitting up bartenders because we know there’s plenty of tea there.

But for now…PIZZAAAAAAA! 

Story one: “Guy called up and asked if he could get a ‘large half pizza.’ We’re like, ‘half what? Half cheese, half pepperoni? What? We don’t do half pizzas. What would you like us to do with the other half?’ His response was, ‘Can’t you just sell it to somebody else?’”

Story two: “Guy comes in to pick up his pizza, we give it to him, and he puts it under his arm like it’s his briefcase and he’s going to work (sideways!). We’re looking at him in amazement as he’s walking out to his car. Like what is this guy doing? Half hour later we got a call back and it’s him saying that there’s something wrong with the pizza because all the cheese, sauce, and toppings were all pushed to one side.”

 – Danny Segers, co-owner, Letizia’s Pizza

“Nothing better than as a kid seeing members of Wu Tang coming into my dad’s shop, loaded on God knows what, dropping 20s and 100s on the floor thinking they were singles.” – Besar Kaba, owner of SoNo Wood Fired

A few days later, Bes had another one from his spot, SoNo Wood Fired…

“Orders a Calabrese pizza which has spicy Soppressata (clearly stated on the menu), gets the pizza and realizes there’s meat on the pizza. Goes, ‘I’m a vegetarian.’”

And a contribution of a receipt with modifications galore

“Well I had a pizza chef that would periodically drink, so when the pizzas would start coming out shaped like Texas, I knew he was drunk! Or I would have customers bring bags of cheap Polly-O mozzarella and cans of sardines. Or when customers would say, ‘I don’t want any grill marks on the pizza,’ I would say, ‘They’re grilled pizzas!’” – Tim Shanley, owner/brewer at Run & Hide Brewing Co., former co-owner of Coals Pizza

“I have so many from my time at Pizza Post. I worked with a crew that was Italians, Guatemalans, and Brazilians. The new guy started out in the dish pit, then you progress to prep person (chicken day I used to clean 400 lbs. of chicken in the basement kitchen and didn’t see the sunlight the whole day. After I progressed to prep guy there was this new Guatemalan guy in the dish pit. His name was Selvin. The guys gave him a rough time. There was a lot of locker room shenanigans in the kitchen. So Selvin suffered at everyone’s hands. He was smart, though. After about two weeks of putting up with manos in culo and other shenanigans, he started wearing a female thong and everyone could see it when he bent over. Nobody ever played with him again.

After you’re prep, you can graduate to the pasta stove with Pompeo DiMeglio. Pompeo is a legend. He never took days off. On his assigned day off he used to come to the pizzeria and blow leaves and repair stuff outside. I learned how to make pizza sauce and pasta with him. He was this very old man from the island of Ponza. And we had our doubts about his personal hygiene, so we ran tests with him. We would write something on his shirt in the back without him noticing and check to see if the writing was going to be there the next day. One day, he went nine days with the same shirt!

One really funny thing to watch was when a customer would walk in during our family lunch. The pizza man was Daniel, a very grumpy Uruguayan guy. He gave me rides home at night and he had to blow one of those breathalyzers on the car before it turned on. Anyways, anytime a customer walks in around 3 p.m., he would get the wrath of Daniel. He would curse for an hour and the customer many times wouldn’t know why this guy is so upset.

After you’re pasta guy, you have the option to graduate to salad and phone person. That’s kind of frowned upon though in the kitchen because it is normally a job that young pretty girls do, so if you take the spot, you’re relegating the kitchen guys to watch your ass the whole day. I did that for a little while until I graduated to my most favorite job of all time, the oven guy. Being the oven guy is exhilarating. It is literally the best job I have ever had. When I retire, I will go back to being oven guy. It is awesome to take care of 27 pizzas at the same time and time them for when to turn them and when to remove them. Being oven guy, you’re literally the man in the place. It is so hard. It burns you. It’s hot. You’re working behind the two pizza guys. But it is awesome.

Before I left the place, I was also able to work briefly as pizza helper (opens the dough for the pizza man), pizza man (puts sauce, ingredients and shoves in the oven), and server. But nothing tops being oven guy. Pompeo is such a legend there that many people would come to the back to greet him. The funny part is that nobody understood him. American people would say he’s speaking Italian. Italian people would not recognize what he was saying either. The guy had been in the country for 40 years from the island of Ponza and has made up his own language. I love Pompeo. And was very special when I left. He actually gave me his 40 year old coffee machine, the little Bialetti that I used to make him coffee in every day.” – Breno Donatti, founder of Winfield Street Coffee, and formerly of Pizza Post

“I’m vegan and can’t have olive oil ‘cause it’s made from butter,” to stuff like “don’t cook my pizza, just only a quarter of the way so I can bake it at home.” – William Eschner, chef, formerly of Locali Pizza Bar / Village Social Restaurant Group

“This is 20 years ago, but we had a delivery request for two round pizzas and an oblong pizza, and a large side of ricotta cheese. The delivery guy said it went to a bachelorette party and when I asked what the oblong shape was for…they made it into a set of balls and a penis, and the ricotta was…well…icing!” – Jay Liptak

“I was 25 years old at the time when I ran a wood-fired pizza oven, it was an open kitchen concept, and on any busy Saturday night I had people throwing dollar bills at me like I was a stripper because they didn’t want to wait for the pizza.” – Chris Cariello, private chef

 Matthew Watson, co-owner and chef at Grigg Street Pizza, decided to send in security camera footage of him falling down while he was wheeling out the sourdough pizza dough. Some days you hit the ground and lie there for a minute.

“Since at Village Social we serve both east meet west dishes, people sometimes order chicken and broccoli over a margherita pizza. We triple check if the customer is ok.”

“One time a super high customer called Locali and asked if he can drop some stuff to incorporate in his pizza. I said no problem. He dropped off a nugget of weed to add to the pizza. We thought in the sauce. He said, ‘No sauce, this is white pizza, just sprinkle it on like rosemary at the end.’ Then he further demoed how to do it. It was hilarious.” – Mogan Anthony, co-founder Village Social Restaurant Group

“One day I met a guy at the diner, who was my waiter for over two years. Amazing customer service, great with kids, always looking at you in the face, making friends. Basically, after two years of getting friendly with this guy, one day, he was sad looking I asked, ‘Yo what’s wrong?’ He said the diner sold, my new boss is an asshole. I said, ‘Quit. I’ll give you a job starting tomorrow.’ He goes, ‘Yo, I gotta give at least two weeks cuz even though he’s an asshole I don’t wanna do that to him.’ I said, ‘Well, I respect that. No problem. You can start in two weeks.’ He comes to the pizzeria. I’m showing him how to work the oven. I have an extra guy working with me so that we can train him.

After the first week, it’s me and him on a Monday, super busy, the phone’s ringing. I’m trying to talk to a customer at the register. He’s looking at me I’m looking at him. I said, ‘Yo bro answer the fucking phone! You don’t hear it ringing?’

He looked me straight in the face because he was reading my lips and he goes, ‘No, I’m deaf,’ and he pulls out a piece of paper from the doctor showing me that he’s deaf. He was reading my lips the last two years and speaks so well you can’t tell that he’s deaf.

I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before I hired you?’ He goes, ‘Because you would hold it against me and wouldn’t have hired me.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t have hired you to answer the phone, but I could’ve hired you to work the oven or make pizza.’

He used to work at circle diner in Fairfield. That’s where I met him. I couldn’t get rid of him because he could sue me, so after two weeks, I get a letter in the mail from child support. He had like seven kids and they wanted me to take like 80% of his pay. Once I showed him the paper, I never saw him again. But in all honesty, he was a great waiter, and then, when I put two and two together, I realize now why he would get down on one knee and take so much time with the kids because he was reading everybody’s lips. Crazy part was I reworked my whole schedule just so that I’d be able to keep him, then the letter comes, and then he disappeared. My wife still makes fun of me to this day.” – Dave Kuban, owner of Dave’s Planet Pizza Norwalk

This absurdity will return…