In Praise of: Tuscarawas County, Ohio Pizza
This past Christmas, as the middle of our three sons (my youngest teenager) steadfastly refused to let us in on his Christmas list (“You already know, Dad”), I half-jokingly offered to set him up with “12 Days of Pizza-mas” — a grand tasting tour of the pizzerias in town.
Actually, it wasn’t half bad an idea. Thankfully, the truly local offerings in Sioux Falls have run counter to the trend I’ve bemoaned about our other stops in the Midwest — at least West of Chicago — and begun to offer up some interesting variations. Why, you can get at least five local joints deep before hitting the chains.
There’s Papa Woody’s, and Sunny’s, and, Charlie’s, and Boss’s, and this dad’s greasy, gooey local favorite, Tomacelli’s. The most reliable local chain for us is Marco’s, and after that it’s the dreck of Domino’s, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and that affront to sensible pizza lovers everywhere, Little Caesar’s (pukeza, pukeza).
Snob! you might cry. Or: but what’s wrong with Little Caesar’s? And to that I’d reply: Guilty. And, If you gave me the choice between consuming a piece of paper colored to look like pizza, and one from Little Caesar’s, I’d order up two of the papers, with extra marker.
But then, I was spoiled for choices, growing up in a small town in Ohio where a big slice of our population were Italian immigrants, and another chunk of the pie was made up of Swiss-German immigrants like my family — the better to eat the delicious pasta and pizza introduced to us by our new-world neighbors.
Pizza from the Heart of Amish Country
Over Christmas, while my family gathered in one of our latest homes away from homes in Franklin, Tenn., the hometown Times-Reporter back in Dover ran an article that outlined the history of four of the oldest pizza joints in town. Even now it’s got my mouth watering — and the write-up doesn’t really go into much detail on the essential taste differences.
For a primer on Tuscarawas County pizza, look to an article by a self-proclaimed “aficionadough” who set out to try to recreate it. In his 2021 post, Jim Ellison runs down the essentials: “Colby cheese on top of a pre-baked crust (so a little thick, but light and airy), before putting the sauce and other toppings on.” That gibes with memory at least: a pie that’s decidedly homemade sauce, and not canned Ragu, with a different sort of zing to the cheese, little cupped pepperonis (at least on the Penso’s I call my favorite), and a brown, breadstick crust that will have you cleaning your plate.
It was just our luck to grow up in a town of 10,000 or so souls in the heart of Amish country that boasted some of the best pizza around, from at least a half dozen families: Pangrazio’s, Granato’s, Mary Zifer’s, Grandma Zifer’s, Dinolfo’s, Penso’s. It’s been nearly three years since I went back home to Dover, but I hade to make sure to squeeze in a meal from the top two on my list, starting with Penso’s.
According to the T-R article, Paul and Mary Penso opened their shop in 1936, which we could tell you from their landmark “Pizza by Penso” sign (ask my mom to sing her original jingle sometime for you). That made them maybe the oldest pizzeria in Ohio, and one of the oldest in the country. The Pensos were so early to the pizza game that they would teach their customers how to say the word.
For years during college in Pittsburgh, and my first job in Sandusky, Ohio, whenever I visited home I’d get about 30, 45 minutes out of town and dial up Penso’s so I could pick up a hot pie or two on the way into town. But you have to be organized: they are still closed Mondays and Tuesdays, only accept cash, and when they’re out of dough, which happened on a cursed Saturday reunion night in 2012, they can’t make any mo’.
I was almost out of luck in 2021 when trying to order from Mary Zifer’s after a stop at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. In the 1940s Mary Zifer started bringing in her homemade pizzas, cold, to her fellow employees at U.S. Quarry Tile in East Sparta before she was laid off in 1953 and began making pizzas out of her house before opening locations around Tuscarawas Avenue and, later, Walnut and Fourth streets.
I remember how my mouth would water, browsing baseball cards in the shop next to her takeout restaurant. Zifer’s was my mom’s family’s favorite, so it was fitting that as I plead with the restaurant to save a pie for me as I timed the 20-minute or so drive from Canton to Dover that the employee recognized my name and remembered my mom. In like Flynn! And chalk up another pizza to remember for my sons, traveling with me.
A Pie to Remember
Not every old pizza joint from Dover remains. Many were the nights after the football game my friends and I would gather at Dinolfo’s, site of first dates and where if the waitress, Rosie, remembered you, you might get a deal on pizza and salad and pops for two.
If she didn’t, you might pay double.
Dinolfo’s was the longtime domain of Larry Dinolfo, former high school football great and all-time Dover character well-known to my family and beloved around town. His family were slinging pies and restaurant fare even before Larry took over in 1954 as owner and sole cook. And his recipes were closely guarded secrets.
Some say they’ve captured the taste and can whip up Dinolfo’s salad and pizza for themselves, now. Others claim Magoo’s in cross-town New Phila has preserved the recipe, if not the legacy of a place that can’t be recaptured now that Larry is gone.
A similar fate has befallen Grandma Zifer’s — no relation to Mary Zifer — which served up pies from the Boulevard between Dover and New Philadelphia from 1967 onward. Grandma Josephine Zifer came to the U.S. from Italy and opened a grocery store in Dover with her husband in the 1920s. She worked into her 90s, and lived to be 104.
As my 30th class reunion looms this year, I have plans to cart the whole family along this time — wife, oldest sons and youngest — and sample the best Dover has to offer. Maybe it won’t be 12 Days of “Pizza-mas,” but you can bet multiple nights of pizza will be on our itinerary.
Dadsense 