Electric Dumping Ground
This is pretty off topic. Maybe the hardest thing about writing this blog is deciding what to write on it. I want to focus on music and movies, and that’s fine–I love that stuff and I love writing about it–but I’m never sure how much slack to allow myself, how far I can veer and still keep this a “music/creative writing blog”…or whatever it is.
Recently I wrote a restaurant review for UCF’s paper, the Central Florida Future, for a kind of end-of-college hoorah. I wrote it on an Italian place in town that a few friends and I always go to for pizza. Great pizza, by the way. Oh, such great pizza.
Anyway, because it’s what I do, I overwrote the hell out of it and had to cut almost half to fit the word count. So, I wanted to post the full version somewhere, get it out there. I’m thinking of it as a bonus. Nothing wrong with bonuses–especially since I can get to keep all the anti-journalistic nonsense in there that I like but couldn’t include in a final: like this version’s ending. I even had a bit about Socrates initially, too, but had to draw the line somewhere. Anti-journalism is just so much more fun.
Grab a Slice, Live a Little
Just down the street from campus, tucked away in the Publix shopping center next to Blockbuster and Devaney’s, is a sign lit in traditional Italian green and red. It reads: Goodfella’s Pizzeria, Italian Restaurant and Catering, and it burns its words into the night like a proud and glorious flag, soaring in the sky and wafting scents of melted mozzarella, roasted garlic and rising crusts with each flap of its mighty cloth. The scents drift across the map of our college town like a warm and savory version of Pig Pen’s dust cloud, tickling the noses of pizza lovers near and far and drawing them over for, like the slogan says, “the best slice this side of Brooklyn!”
Since moving down from Queens and opening Goodfella’s over 12 years ago, owners Sal Ciaccio and Marco DiIornio have been offering “the best slice this side of Brooklyn” in Orlando. But their well of experience in the business runs deep.
With his family, DiIornio owned a string of successful delis in New York for over a decade—some of which Ciaccio frequented as a child. And Mamma Mia’s in Deltona, Ciaccio’s first restaurant (which he opened at only 18 years old), established itself quickly as one of the area’s premier eateries.
But it wasn’t until each moved to Florida that they became close. Two familiar northern faces in the south, they reacquainted and soon forged a partnership.
Never in it for the grease and glory, making other people dinner, offering them a temporary second home has always been just what the two do. It’s what they were taught from long lines of relatives who took their meals seriously and showed them what it means to build communities around their first-class eats, using only the best ingredients and playing the part in town of the stereotypical Italian grandma, the one who’s always happy to see you, always standing by the stove, scooping more onto your plate and yelling, “Mangia, mangia!”
Before a backdrop of kitchen noise and laughter, the pride with which Ciaccio speaks about that part is evident.
“We make our own dough, and sauces and soups and meatballs…,” he listed. “We use the best of the best, Grande cheese, fresh meat. Everything’s fresh everyday. That’s what we take most of our pride in. And that’s what separates us from the other places. To eat good stuff, you got to use good stuff.”
And the customers can tell. Just ask UCF senior and Goodfella’s self-proclaimed No. 1 fan, Spencer Zierk. When asked what he enjoys most about his weekly dinner visits, he had to stop and think.
“Wow,” he said, smirking and looking at the ceiling. “They’re very fast at taking orders, and making the pies. And their crust is beyond words. And…it’s delicious!”
Third-year student Melissa Smith agrees. She and Zierk have been loyal patrons since they each had their first tastes over two years ago.
“It’s like they have a hypnotic draw,” Smith said, giggling. “I don’t have a least favorite aspect. It’s just a package deal.”
With an intimate yet casual candlelit interior, full wine lists juxtaposed next to walls peppered in mafia shots, food awards and NY sports memorabilia, Goodfella’s offers a nice but not stuffy ambience for dining in. Their menu has everything from Ravioli to Chicken Francese—but it’s the pizza that stands center-stage, and everybody has their pick.
Smith likes the pepperoni. “It’s classic but it’s amazing,” she said, “the way they do it.”
And when asked about Zierk’s pie of choice, he didn’t even blink.
“Eggplant,” he fired back. “Find me another place in town with eggplant and I give you a liar.”
Despite their continued success, though, Sal and Marco have no intention of opening another branch.
“Never,” Ciaccio said simply. “This is the first place. We’re the original. I’m over here, you know? The customers know me. I watched a lot of their kids grow up.”
He listed his employees and how long each have been with him—one cook for nine years, most of his staff for over five.
“Me and my partner, we just focus on this place and be the best we can be here,” he said. “[More locations and] you really kind of lose out on that, you know, base with the customers.”
And it’s a base that customers seem to appreciate as much as Ciaccio does.
“They know me in there now,” Zierk smiled. “This place is only getting better!”
For Ciaccio and DiIornio, serving food isn’t just work, it’s a way of being a part of something bigger, of connecting with people and knowing that what they do affects them.
“When people leave this place and appreciate us and our food,” Ciaccio inflected, “that’s a huge compliment. They appreciate us and we appreciate them. …I sponsor a lot of sports teams. That’s the great thing about this, being able to be a business owner. It’s a part of my life. Almost half of my life I’ve been here.”
Authorial aside: You know the worst part about that phrase, “You haven’t lived until you’ve had …”? It’s the fact that afterward, after you’ve had whatever it is that “…” happens to be, you’re forced to go through the motions of serious self-evaluation. Existential questions start building up: “If I only began to truly live now, then who am I? Who was I? What else have I been missing?”
Before you know it, you’re a rambling, neurotic mess, anxious and always philosophizing, a highlight reel of Woody Allen’s greatest hits. So you might think, “Why bother? Ignorance is bliss.”
But therein lies the existential dilemma: Partake in the “…” and understand that your life until then had been like some kind of bland, half-awake dream—but be truly alive; or stick with Dominos or other mediocre “…s”, continue to live in the shadows, content but a part of you always vaguely aware that something is missing.
It’s enough to force a Sorpano’s-esque “Oh!” out from the best of us.
Goodfell’as Pizzeria, Italian Restaurant & Catering
11865 E Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL 32826
407-658-6615
You can go to the Central Florida Future homepage for the abridged final cut
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 4:10 pm and is filed under essay/social crit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
