Manna for the Masses
Feverish Fabrication |
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Manna for the Masses
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A weekend at Wedgewood is a study in controlled chaos. Typically, during the height of the rush, more than 50 people crowd the counter, clamoring for items off Fernando's simplified list. Pizza is all he sells, along with beer and sodas for carryout customers. His 12-inch pies begin at an astonishing $2.25 (for his Garlic pie, topped by oil, salt garlic and black pepper) to $8.25 for his Sandwich Pizza, a layered specialty that takes 40 minutes to produce. His 16-inch pies top out at $15.50 for the sandwich variety. He also sells pizzas in classic round and sheet configurations and will sell half-and-half pies for the full price of the most expensive half. The topping list is somewhat slim, though with 20 to choose from, customers can configure their meal in a good variety of combinations. Clams, crab meat, spinach, potatoes and broccoli make up the m  ost exotic of his offerings, and he also offers a
white pizza that goes for $3.75 (12-inch) and $5.50 (16-inch round or sheet).Though he has 70 seats at Wedgewood Pizza (over the years he's expanded into vacated spaces that once surrounded the shop) that are constantly full during the rush, he makes few concessions to dine-in customers, offering no table service nor even glasses for their drinks. I don't want too much bother." he explains. "You don't make as much money with sit-down; they pay the same as carryout. They stay here, make confusion, make a mess. If I made improvements, gave them glasses, it changes too many things. We bring the glass to the table, we pick it up, wash it - it changes too many things. I don't want that. No one complains, it's all right." One reason customers don't complain is because of his almost religious belief in using only the best ingredients on the market. He recalls his years in partnership with Bianco and Accocia as good ones, though marked by occasional bickering over such purchases. "When we started, my partners were switching to different sauces. They wanted to buy the one that's more cheap. We had some trouble because the sauce I wanted to use is always the most expensive, same as today. The sauce I use costs the most in this country, but it's the best (6 - in -1 from Escalon Packers, along with Bontar Pizza Sauce, combined with spices to reproduce his grandmother's old recipe). For a while my partner used another sauce and business went downhill. "Never go down in quality," he proclaims with classic Italian vigor. "That's the trick. If you're going to change, always change to something better. Never go down, always better, always better. Otherwise you hurt your business." 
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