Police Station Pizza Party
A quasi-family reunion focused around Police Station Pizza to determine if Police Station Pizza is the greatest pizza ever created.
The most critical component of a family event is pizza. Pizza carries so much of the weight in social situations. Everyone has an opinion about the cheese, sauce or crust. Pizza inspires conversation about more pizza. About home towns, parties, memories, late nights, festivities, and birthdays. Because it’s connected to our lives, it links together people like synapses in a neural network.
A few weeks ago my dad invited me, Christa and Charlie over to a cousin-fest. My dad meets up with his cousin, their kin and it’s a big blowout. This one was special. A cousin, Dave, was coming in from Detroit and finally, after years of talking this up, we were going to have the greatest pizza on earth. In the history of humanity even! In fact, according to Dave, it probably makes sense for every other pizzeria to shut down shop and pack it in because we have hit pinnacle pizza. Police Station Pizza is the zenith of pizza. At least to Dave.
The cousins collected themselves in the Shaler area at Don and Judy’s home. Cousin after cousin strolled in to the house we all spent our Christmas mornings twenty years ago. When I was a young child I’d be sequestered into the side room with a single TV, about 30 inches. CRT, huge, large tubes inside. Every Christmas morning it played Indiana Jones or Star Wars. Is it healthy for a child to see a man reach into Harrison Ford’s chest and rip out his heart Christmas morning? I don’t know. We may never know.
Now we are sipping on wine, tending to our own kids and waiting for Police Station Pizza to arrive.
This particular event is the culmination of many other cousin events where the elder cousins argued about the best pizza in the area. Everyone’s favorite pizza was, shockingly, within a few miles of where they grew up. Funny how that works. It goes like this: Oh - that pizza shop I spent most of the childhood isn’t the best pizza in the world? Okay, you don’t believe me? I’m gonna stuff you in a calzone. Cook ya til ya squeal or the cheese starts to bubble. Dave finally had enough. He was going to force us to have Police Station Pizza.
So, while we lingered in Don’s house, he traveled all the way to Ambridge to grab enough Police Station Pizza to feed a house full of three generations of family. At best this is a forty minute journey one way. The man, who drove here from out of state, then drove eighty more minutes to Police Station Pizza. This is love. Enduring the monotony of the road, traveling vast distances to express your feelings. Words aren’t enough so actions take over. That’s the stage we’re at here. This guy loves Police Station Pizza and is going to travel to the ends of the earth to prove it to any doubters. If Police Station Pizza had apostles, Dave would be the Peter.
Finally, Dave arrives with the pizza. The excitement continues to build. The house is eager chow down on pizza, bellies have wine and whiskey sloshing around in them. The two four year olds have eaten a cookie a piece. People are hungry and the appetizers are waning.
But the eating has to wait. This is a take and bake situation and Dave has to construct the pizzas. Carefully recreate these magnificent pizzas, like an amateur artist trying to fix the Ecce Homo fresco. Could these pizzas compare to the real thing? Is this the real thing?
He cooks the pizzas, adds the sauce. Then lays out bowls of toppings. The pizzas are ready to go. I scatter a handful of cheese on top and am chastised for not loading up the pizzas to the point where there’s a meat avalanche. I like my pizzas light, nimble, able to float on the wind.
There’s a silence as we bite into the pizza. For many in here this is our first time eating what we’ve been told is the human equivalent of ambrosia. How do we talk about this? Digest this?
The bites are crunchy. There’s a nice labyrinth of gluten and air pockets within the crust. It’s very crunchy, almost no give. The flavors are simple. Maybe empty. Maybe this pizza is a vessel for nostalgia. This is an ark that you can store your memories and carry them through the seas of time. Eating this pizza gives you access to every other time you’ve had that pizza. It’s a memory box, a Time Machine, a way to travel through food.
I asked Dave what it is about Police Station Pizza that makes it so remarkable. He starts by talking about the experience of ordering the pizza. The place is tight. Think of Penn Mac cheese counter the week of Christmas. The security line to get into a Steelers Playoff Game. Pittsburgh tight. It’s small, but things are still progressing.
Dave begins to glow when talking about how you order. A person who is maybe underpaid and overworked, agitated, asks you what you want. You say your order. Something like three slices, two with pepperoni. No one writes the order down. Then, mysteriously, twenty minutes later your order arrives.
To Dave, that’s the Police Station Pizza magic. Something that simply works. There’s no need to understand it any further than you have to. It’s a simple transaction and then you get pizza.
We put so much more than toppings onto our pizza. We put pieces of ourselves. And to share your favorite pizza you have to open yourself up to others and be vulnerable. We know not everyone is going to agree with you about your pizza place, but what matters most is that you can express and share your passion with others.
I’ve never had Police Station Pizza, but it was a delightful time. I’m looking forward to going to the shop and getting yelled at as I order a couple of fresh slices. If you have a Police Station Pizza memory sound off in the comments.
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist
Would have liked to of seen a group picture here