OK…we admit it. We jumped on the Seattle World’s Fair bandwagon like everyone else.  But then, it’s not often that an entire city gets to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of one of its iconic structures. And, while putting our Spring/Summer Newsletter together, we found out some interesting things about the area around Seattle Center.  Would it surprise you to know that our Queen Anne Pizzeria resides where a pre-Space Needle landmark used to be? We also remembered what an amazing year 1962 was for cinema. Check out our latest issue for a flash back to the 60’s and find out our latest news.

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Did you know that black olives hide their natural beauty behind the veil of an additive called Ferrous Gluconate? This water-soluble iron salt artificially sets a black color in the olive. It doesn’t change the olive’s flavor, just its color. It is still the same amazing vegetable that people love to enjoy on their pizza. But somewhere in its history, cloaking its brownish, purply black flesh beneath a black veil became all the rage.

Well, it’s time to let the olives disrobe and not shy away from their true selves. We have switched to an olive that is proudly au naturel. Unnecessary additives have been stripped away. The olives are simply clad in plain water and sea salt before exhibiting on our pizza.

Why the switch? When we found out about this natural olive, there was no question that it fit our desire to get, um, closer to nature. Granted, Ferrous Gluconate does have a cosmetic effect people love. However, given the choice, we prefer as few additives as possible.

They are the same great tasting olives that we had before, except now they’re just naked.

Rosmarino at DeLaurenti's

Like many Seattleites, we’ve developed an affinity for Salumi Artisan Cured Meats. We patiently waited with bated breath for them to receive their USDA certification. The moment that happened in 2005 we could barely contain our excitement and built a seasonal around their Finocchiona salami.

Consequently, we have been looking for an excuse to feature more of their products. We are overjoyed to announce that we are starting Salumi specials that will spotlight a rotating Salumi product throughout the year. It is similar to our seasonal offerings, but will be available for a longer period of time. We have started with a favorite, the Salame Picante, which features their rosmarino salami.

You don’t hear much about their rosmarino salami. That’s because back in 2007 DeLaurenti’s Pat McCarthy contacted Armandino Batali asking Salumi to develop an exclusive DeLaurenti product. They batted around a couple of ideas, and then Pat hit upon the thought of a rosemary salami. Armandino found a fresh rosemary source that he liked from Vashon Island. The rest, as they say, is history. Pat is extremely proud to say that DeLaurenti remains the only place where you can buy Salumi’s Rosmarino salami. You can’t even buy it at Salumi. The only exception is on our Salame Picante. It will be available through the spring, or until we run out of it!

We are still working out what will be featured next. Early indicators point towards Salumi’s mole salami. We’ll keep you posted!

This past Saturday we held the finals for our annual March Madness contest at the Bridle Trails Delivery Kitchen. It was a battle between some experienced tossers – the least tenured competitor has been with Pagliacci for over 2 years. The Final Four were all competing for pride, cash, and dinner for their entire store (and, no, it’s not pizza).

Quinn Ressler from Crossroads, Hugo Uitzil-Tun from Juanita, Marlene Tun-Gil from Bellevue Square, and Jon Obrycki from 85^th were this year’s finalists. All have participated in March Madness before but were first-time finalists. Prior to competition Bridle’s lobby began to fill up with spectators ready to cheer and jeer. Juanita was the best represented out of the stores but Crossroads had the edge on props.

All of the competitors tossed out very fast pizzas – the fastest was 31 seconds and the “slowest” was 38 seconds. That means each of these crewmembers can turn a dough ball into a large cheese pizza in just over half-a-minute!

We tallied all the seconds and graded all of the pizzas. We know our customers have high standards so we grade hard. We look at size, even cuts, color of bake – top and bottom, spread of sauce and cheese, crust appearance, and a handful of other criteria.

Quinn had the fastest pizza, but once they were all out of the oven it looked like a race between Hugo and his aunt Marlene. In the end, Marlene proved that Pagliacci and family seniority counted for something. She earns the title of Best Cook in Pagliacci 2012 and gets to defend her crown next year.

Thanks to all the stores for coming out and congrats to Jon, Quinn, Hugo, and especially Marlene for busting it out and proving to be the best of the best!

Let’s face it…just about everyone loves bacon. Many people have called it “the gateway meat” and its salty, smoky charm can even turn some vegetarians back into carnivores.  The demand for the Bacon Leek pizza that won our recipe contest last year proved so strong that we knew we had to bring it back.  This year we are using an all-natural uncured bacon from Hempler’s Food Group, just up I-5 a stretch in Ferndale.

Hans Hempler and his wife Emmy bought a small meat and sausage shop in Bellingham in 1934 and, using techniques that Hans had learned in his native Germany, started to produce their own unique brand of sausages, bacons, and hams. From this little shop they have expanded and Hempler’s now operates out of a 30,000 square foot facility in Ferndale.

The bacon that we are using this year is free of nitrates, nitrites or any other preservatives, and is as minimally processed as possible. That means no antibiotics or hormones, either. The ingredients are simply pork, honey from Oregon, and sea salt. Their pigs (somewhat ironically) are fed a vegan diet. Hempler’s likes to say that they make the “Leanest Bacon on the Planet Earth”, so that there is less fat and more delicious porky goodness in their bacon.

We are proud to be using their bacon on our pizza, and hope that you enjoy it as much as we do! Bacon is also available as a pizza topping while the Bacon Leek is on the menu, so if there is a combination that you have wanted to try, now is the time!

Enjoy!

This weekend hordes of people ventured out to watch tributes battle in a match that would see only one winner emerge victorious and return home a hero to many. Pagliacci was not exempt from this phenomenon either. No, we didn’t take our pizza people to see The Hunger Games. This weekend saw our annual Best Cook Competion kick off with a slight twist.

Instead of the 64-person bracket, we asked each store to nominate a tribute, er, competitor to represent their district, I mean store. We told the managers they aren’t eligible to compete and let the best of our crew duke it out for the title of Best Cook in Pagliacci.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the difference between Pagliacci’s 2012 March Madness and The Hunger Games:

Our first weekend had tossing competitions at our Bridle Trails and Miller Street Delivery Kitchens. The Eastside fully embraced the competition. Miriam “Cinna” Woodruff not only competed but she designed shirts for herself and each member of her entourage. Our Crossroads Delivery Kitchen is the closest thing we have to District 1 – chock full of professional tributes. Crossroads has put at least one person in the Final Four every year of the competition so expectations were weighty on Quinn “Cato” Ressler. For better-or-worse, he brought along GM Paul “Haymitch Abernathy” Williams – a former March Madness winner. Paul could show Quinn the way to win, but it would be a lot for Quinn to let down a former champion who hand selected him. Other participants included an aunt/nephew battle between Hugo Uitzil-Tun (Juanita) and Marlene Tun-Gil (Bellevue), a returning competitor from last year’s Final Four – Zach Lindner (Main Street), and Elliot “Thresh” Jensen (Edmonds) – the most physically imposing competitor.

The competition rewards a combination of speed and quality and the times were fast. Most competitors got a cheese pizza tossed, sauced, topped, and launched in 33-38 seconds. Hugo posted what would be the fastest time of the weekend with a 28-second effort. Once the final tally came in, however, Hugo found himself just 1 point behind Quinn and just ahead of his aunt, Marlene. Those three had to wait to see what the Seattle stores would do at Miller.

The expectations at Miller were that the busy Seattle stores would beat up on the outlying Eastside stores. Some of our busiest locations are in Seattle and the crew have had plenty of reps to hone their craft. Sam Snyder had home-store advantage. Camilo Lucatero (West Seattle) started for us in 1997. Mikael Croy (Sand Point Way) continued to be the best dressed competitor, rocking a dress shirt and vest that complemented his Mohawk. Also in the field was Jon Obrycki from our busy 85^th Street Delivery Kitchen.

Pre-match expectations don’t always bear out and that was the case with Sunday’s competition. Nerves might have been higher as times were higher. With each grading it looked like all of the Eastside’s scores would hold up. In the end, Jon Obrycki was able to edge his way into the Final Four.

This Saturday afternoon at Bridle Trails the Final Four (Quinn Ressler, Hugo Uitzil-Tun, Marlene Tun-Gil, Jon Obrycki) will be lured to the Cornucopia, I mean toss table, to see who will be the best cook in all of Pagliacci.

Have A Nice Day!

We’re bringing funny back to the Broadway Pizzeria with The People’s Republic of Komedy. That’s right kids, come experience the resurrection of Comedy Night on Thursday March 29^th from 8-10pm at our Broadway Pizzeria.  Thrill to the comedic stylings of Kevin Hyder! Roar with laughter at Tristan Devin, Travis Watt, John Theroux and Carl Westgren! Marvel at the rest of the performers who have not been announced yet! Or, just come on in for an earlier Happy Hour and Seattle’s best pizza! We’ll see you there, and wear your happy pants! And be sure to mark your calendars, Comedy Night will take place the last Thursday of the month!

Currently hanging at the Broadway Pizzeria, Mika Loudon’s photos reflect her view that art can be spontaneous and can be everywhere.  She uses pictures taken with her iPhone and mounts them on wooden blocks, which she then covers in resin. She likes the relative permanence of the wood and the resin, as they allow her to do something more lasting with the photos on her phone, rather then just having them sit on her camera.

Stop by for a slice and check out Mika’s art at Broadway before the end of the month. You can also see more of Mika’s work on her Flickr stream.

Wednesday February 29^th is Leap Day, and we wanted to celebrate it by rolling prices back to one of our favorite leap years, 1984. Back then, we only had 2 pizzerias, and you could get a slice of our Original Cheese for $.90 and a slice of our Primo for $1.35. Our first pizzeria in the U-district was a great place to stop in and grab a quick bite before heading to Peaches Records to get the new Van Halen LP, 1984. Their tour that year was the first concert I ever went to. (My mom and I had a great time.) 1984 also saw the debut album from Bon Jovi and Ricky Martin’s first appearance with Menudo.

I also vividly remember the haircut I was sporting at the time. I knew it as a Bi-Level, but we know it today as The Mullet. My friends who listened to New Wave favored a more, shall we say, asymmetrical haircut. Rattails were in, and everyone one I knew had a bad experience with Sun In hair lightener. Girls had bangs that reached heights that they have not seen since.

One thing to love about clothes during the 80’s was their functionality.  With all the neon that everyone was wearing, it’s a wonder that anyone ever got lost. Thanks to leg-warmers, nobody was ever cold, and it seemed like everywhere you looked people were wearing shoulder pads.

The Ave Pizzeria was also a great place to eat before taking the quick walk down the block to see Greystoke – The Legend of Tarzan, The Cotton Club, Ghostbusters or Amadeus at the Neptune Theatre. It was also a good place to get a slice after seeing The Terminator, Bachelor Party, Beat Street, or Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom at the Varsity a bit further down the street.

Our Pizzeria on Broadway had opened the year before and the adventurous residents of “the Hill” had a new favorite place for a quick bite or a lingering night out.

Regardless of which pizzeria you visited, you could be assured of getting a great slice of pizza.  Sadly, the days of pleather pants and mesh shirts are gone, (Yes, I wore both…together) but you can meet up with friends and remember the old days this coming Wednesday when we roll back our slice prices.  It will be Totally Rad to the Absolute Max!

Any guesses on the translation of the title?

The Academy Awards are this Sunday, and (master of the segue that I am,) I thought I would take on a question that is heard in many of our locations: “So, just what is the story with the Italian movie posters, anyway?”

When our founder, Dorene Centioli-McTigue opened up our first pizzeria in the University District, she thought that the walls were, well, a bit bare.

Originally, she hung some photos she had taken of uncooked pasta.  After a couple of years she felt that they just didn’t really fit in the restaurant anymore, and started to look around to see what she could replace them with.  During a trip to Los Angeles she saw some Italian movie posters in a shop. She really liked them, but they were pretty expensive, so she thought that she would look for some the next time she went to Italy.  While visiting Rome, she did not have a lot of luck getting posters from any of the theaters, but she was directed to a video shop near Campo Fiori, not too far from the Piazza Navona. The owner, Marco, was a real fan of Hollywood and had quite a bit of movie memorabilia.  Dorene explained what she was looking for and he agreed to start collecting them for her. She would pick them up and bring them back on subsequent trips. It just kind of grew from there.

They are quite the conversation starter, that is for sure! It is always fun to try to figure out how different the American title is from the Italian one. Enjoy the Oscars!