The Idyllic Vacation Slice of Pizza
Back from vacation and here to ponder the meaning of an exotic slice in a mysterious and once-a-year circumstance.
Let’s Talk Vacation Pizza
Hi it’s me! I’ve been on vacation neglecting my pizza journalism duties. You may think this is a glorious, easy breezy endeavor, but I’m chasing greasy trails of news all over town, transcribing pizza interviews and trying to keep up with the ever changing world of Pittsburgh pizza.
When I go on vacation I try not to seek out pristine pizza shops, I like the pizza to come organically. When you travel to Rehoboth, a small beach town in Delaware, you know a trip isn’t complete without a couple slices of Grotto Pizza. In fact, if you want pizza it’s kind of your only option. It’s impossible to escape the gravity of Grotto.
I don’t know how much of the original Grotto Pizza exists anymore. At one time it was surely a nice greasy pizza shop on the boardwalk, perfect for families, and boogie boards exhausted from battling the roaring Atlantic Ocean waves. From a single seed of a shop in Rehoboth it sprouted up around four shops in Rehoboth Beach, a couple shops in Dewey down the highway and a handful in Pennsylvania.
Grotto Pizzas dot the shore like the watch towers erected during World War II to keep an eye out for encroaching enemies. Unlike those watch towers, Grotto keeps and eye out for hungry swimmers and exhausted beach bums. Parents that want a venue they can escape to with the family to drink a cold one. They open early, ready for sunrise beach combers to take a break and refill with a sauce forward pizza.
Grottos is one of the three businesses repeated along the boardwalk of Rehoboth. It’s a Grotto Pizza, Thrasher Fries, and Kohr Brothers custard. Each year these businesses grow taking up more space in town. One day Rehoboth will be nothing more than a combination Grotto Pizza- Kohr-Thrashers vacation world. But on vacation the rules are different. Expectations, manners, circumstances cease to exist. Your job is not appeasing, or judging, it’s merely living. Soaking up as much life as possible before you have to return to your daily grind. The less you have to think about your choices the better, because you spend every single day thinking about every decision you make and what others make.
To simplify your choices down to almost none is the greatest component vacation can offer. Your mind, body and soul are at ease. Freedom from having to choose between detroit style, Neapolitan, round or square…you don’t realize the drips and drops of anxiety and stress that fill you up over time. Like sand in an hourglass, these are the days of our overwhelming pizza choices. For a brief week you don’t have to think beyond the next hour of your day. The biggest question you have to answer is when will you reach into the cooler and pull out the first beach turkey sandwich of the day? (Answer: 11am for the first and 1pm for the second).
Grotto Pizza, like much of Rehoboth, is built for vacation. My first Grotto experience was a night when Charlie and I ventured to the boardwalk to scope out the games. We had no expectations and Charlie had no concept of a boardwalk. We were explorers, charting an unknown course of excitement and fun. Our future held nothing but fun.
I’m trained to be weary of chains. When you see more than one or two of a shop, you immediately question the quality. How can every shop be good? Are they only successful because they cater to the middle of the road? Are they creating a product that takes minimal investment and satisfies people just enough to swing by. Chain restaurants emphasize convenience and speed at the cost of quality. That’s totally fine and I’ll admit that on my way to Rehoboth we celebrated the first night of vacation with a trip to Chili’s. Did the chicken sandwich taste like bundled up rope? Yes, but we had fun. On the way back we stopped at Olive Garden and I gotta say, it wasn’t poison.
Grotto Pizza looks like a tacky chain. There are four locations within a half mile radius. Don your sandals or crocs, walk out the door and you’ll soon run into a Grotto Pizza. Each location has a window to grab a slice or a dining room to take the family after a day at the beach. A pitcher of ice cold generic light beer. Golden, bubbly, sitting in the middle of the table. Huge round pizzas taking up half the table. The ocean breeze blowing into the restaurant, adding an aroma of salt while the sun shines brightly outside. If that’s not living, I don’t know what is.
They have found a way to cater to every type of vacationer. I was ready to be a Grotto-hater. But Charlie and I were on an adventure and I needed a quick bite before filling up on ice cream. I ordered a slice from the team of teenagers working the register. Their name tags features the state or country of origin. Youth traveled here in the summer to spend their days working at Grotto and their nights frolicking around the boardwalk.
The teenager informed me that they wouldn’t know when a plain slice of pizza would be available, but they had pepperoni ready now. The kitchen was busy making too many pizzas for the beach town. Behind the register squad was an old Italian guy teaching a youth how to use the sauce hose to produce the signature Grotto swirl of sauce that marks every pizza.
I took the slice of pepperoni. My expectations were low, but dang, this pizza hit. The sauce was refreshing. The crust had a rough texture, like a corn meal. It crunched with excitement at every bite. The pizza was excited to be eaten. I folded the slice and the crust crackled with happiness. The outside was soft, the inside was chewy. Also packed with an idyllic flavor, a little doughy, but not overwhelmingly so. I’m a sauce boss and this is a sauce-forward slice. Swirls of sauce ensure an even spread across the pie, and the cheese is light. Just a layer of lamination. Like a jelly fish washed up on shore, Grotto Pizza is delicate and majestic. A pleasant surprise that may look more dangerous than it actually is.
Does Grotto Pizza taste good outside of the beach? I’m not sure it matters. This pizza couldn’t survive in a non-beach atmosphere, but it was never meant to. Nor does it. What matters is that when you decide you want food in the pizza genre, Grotto is there waiting for you. And it pairs perfectly with a salty breeze.
Vacation is a time to slowdown, connect and recenter. Developing a simple routine helps to recalibrate your feelings and senses. After eating Grotto Pizza I feel a renewed sense of pizza enthusiasm. Ready to explore the outer regions of our pizza stratosphere, dig up new stories and forage for intriguing pizza news.
Cool, fun to be writing about pizza again. If you missed out on my last newsletter, I interviewed Neil Blazin of Driftwood Oven. You can listen to it in Apple Podcast here or on Spotify. I got a lot of good feedback on this interview and hope to talk to more pizza makers in the future. If you know someone (or are someone!) that would be a good interview, hit me up.
Pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist
Have had their pizza numerous times in the past- u r right on the mark!