My husband loved pizza. He grew up near a Domino’s Pizza that he liked, but the best pizza was always Buzzi’s Pizza. Whenever we went back to his hometown, Rochester, Pennsylvania, we got Buzzi’s Pizza for dinner. Someone in the family went around to whoever was home and asked what pizza they wanted. We’d say things like, “two cheese”, or “two mushroom, two onion”. Then they’d call Buzzi’s to place the order. 20 minutes later we’d drive a quarter mile to Buzzi’s, whoever wanted to ride along, set the parking brake on the steep main street, and go in. The waiting area was tiny and cluttered when I knew it; Buzzi was getting up in years and the downtown of Rochester was mostly quiet, no foot traffic, no lighted storefronts. There was one arcade machine in Buzzi’s: Joust, one of my husband’s favorite games. He spent hours playing it while waiting on pizza through the years.

Buzzi was a robust older man when I saw him; he loved making people happy through his pizza. You could see over the counter into the kitchen. There were not many people working. Buzzi never delivered and had no dining room. You had to go get your own pizza. But he made his own tangy tomato sauce and his own crust, thick, crisp on the bottom. The pizza came in rectangles of six square pieces, in rectangular boxes. The cheese went right to the edge, no ridge of crust around it. You had to order in units of six, but each piece got its own toppings, hence the two of this and four of that. There was no equivalent to supreme; every topping had to be named individually. Mostly we stuck to one or two toppings: crust, sauce, loads of mozzarella cheese, and a topping. Basic and delicious.

Buzzi had a son who took over when Buzzi died. His son wasn’t able to make a go of it, though; eventually the pizza place closed. The time for Buzzi’s had ended.