When I was a young boy growing up in Yadkin County North Carolina Pizza was just not a part of our diet. Can people today even think about going through a life without pizza? A large majority of the restaurants today are centered on pizza.
We had a good neighbor George and Barbara Holmes that had a daughter, she was an only child. We would always go to their house and play. It seems like they had every board game that was offered at that period of time. They took us under their wing and fed us as one of their own children for many years. We even started a garage band and their daughter Jennie played the keyboard with us.
One evening they invited us to go and eat pizza. This would have been the first pizza that we had ever eaten. It was in the late 60’s that we went to Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Winston Salem NC. The theme at Shakey’s pizza was centered on ragtime music. They also had one of those player pianos which played the rolls with the holes punched in them. This was really fun and looking back brings back wonderful memories. There was another place that they took us to eat pizza and that was the Village Inn pizza restaurant in Statesville NC. Village Inn has stood the test of time and the restaurant is still there. When the 70’s came around we had a place in Elkin NC called Demarko’s Pizza on North Bridge Street where Basin Creek Restaurant has just recently closed. The next pizza place I can remember is The Pizza Den which Jerry Moses owned. He and his wife were always friendly. I can remember it being where the Food Lion store is on North Bridge Street and later at the intersection of Oakland Drive and North Bridge Street it was on the same spot as the CVS Pharmacy.
Now we have Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, and many others too numerous to mention. It seems like in this economy pizza restaurants are the only ones making a profit. Restaurants like Subway have even added a personal pizza to their menus which have been selling real well for them. People can’t wait to get their hands on a sweet pizza like chocolate chip, brown sugar and cinnamon, and apple. There is even chicken alfredo and also a Texas Pete hot and spicy pizza. Frozen pizza sales in the grocery stores are a big part of their profits. Whenever our company has a meeting with a working lunch they always serve us pizza. Churches have youth parties and even at Bible School the food they bring in for the kids is pizza. This makes pizza available with a lot of different varieties. There are vegetarian pizzas, meat pizzas and sweet pizzas. Schools have even made it part of their everyday lunch menus. Growing up without pizza and then having pizza, I never thought it would come to this. Pizza I believe is the most popular food that there is. I just thought I would give you this to make you think. What would life be like without pizza?
1 comment:
I was strolling down the isle at Food Lion this week, always makes me think and giggle just a little when I see a half or whole isle dedicated to something we had never even laid eyes on, much less eaten at age 12 or so. I had already cruised by whole isles of breakfast in a box. Two of them. A whole isle of dog food and opposite it, another whole isle dedicated to cat stuff. Who knew?
Finally the frozen foods and then specifically pizza, which I noted was half an isle. Frozen pizza is nearly inedible if you have ever had really good pizza. De Marco's for instance. Came out so hot you couldn't touch it for what seemed like hours. And then the cheese. Oh the stringy gooey cheese with all that sausage underneath. And the perfect thin crunch of crust. It was the perfect beginning to what was usually a night at Reeve's Theater watching The Sting, The Great Gatsby or Love Story.
And then De Marco's was gone, nobody knows what happened but here came The Pizza Den with it's very own legendary mushroom pizza and the sausage so nobody cared. It was freaking amazing pizza. Those were my thoughts going up that frozen foods isle at Food Lion. I would give anything to have one of those pizza's today.
I've had pizza in NYC, Little Italy, also in Italy and all over Italy but still nothing like those pizzas. Maybe it was a HOMETOWN kind of thing. There is an old chain in Columbus OH named Massey's that has a similar charm. The pepperoni are small and they come out curled slightly and smoldering around the edges!!! Any way thanks for writing about Elkin and all things remembered Keith! Keep it up.
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