Pagliai's Pizza
Encyclopedia : P : PA : PAG : Pagliai's Pizza
Pagliai’s is the name of a number of beloved pizza restaurants in Iowa. As of 2006, there were apparently five restaurants (in Des Moines, Grinnell, Iowa City, Johnston, and West Des Moines, Iowa), which appeared to be owned and managed under three separate corporate umbrellas.
The company began with the founding of Pagliai’s Pizza in Ames, Iowa, by the brothers Sam and Arnold Pagliai in 1957, following Sam’s success since 1953 in serving the pizzas to people at his neighborhood bar in Ames. Sam's descendants now run the restaurants in Des Moines, Grinnell, and Johnston.
The West Des Moines location, found in Switchboard.com records, is not listed on the Web site pagliais.com, and is apparently under other ownership.
The most historic remaining location of any Pagliai's restaurant is the one in Iowa City, Iowa, which is doubly historic, both because it remains at the building at 302 East Bloomington Street where it was founded in 1962, and because it occupies the historic 1875 Holub and Son grocery store building.
The building was also known as the National Hall (Narodni Sin), a dance hall and meeting place organized by the local Bohemian community. The large, scalloped sign above the front cornice used to read “HOLUB AND SON, THE NATIONAL.” The dance hall occupied the large space above the first-floor grocery store (now Pagliai’s), and included a balcony. The building also operated as an inn for visitors to Iowa City. Today, all of the space not occupied by Pagliai’s is the Holub Apartments. The large, but not enormously large, building has three entrances on North Linn Street, with four addititional street addresses—308, 310, 312, and 314 North Linn Street. Cellars beneath the parking lot have in the past regularly led to ground sinkage which has had to be repaired. The building has been owned by the same family since its building in 1875—the Slezaks, then the Holubs, and now the Skardas, all by descent.
Pagliai’s largely unchanging interior decor contributes to Iowa Citians’ love for the restaurant, a decor which has at times included flocked wallpaper, plastic pebble-glass glasses, and, of course, the omnipresent tabletop canisters of parmesan cheese and pepper flakes.
The Iowa City location operates under the name A&A Pagliai’s, and is apparently run by the descendants of Arnold. (The “A&A” derives either from “Arnold” and “Armond,” the present owner, or “Armond” and “Anthony,” the present owner’s grandson.) The business used to, however, have the same name and logo as used on the pagliais.com Web site. The Iowa City location does not deliver, contributing to its character as a dine-in, sit-down restaurant favored by locals.
Pizza style
Pagliai’s is famous for its especially thin and crispy pizza. The most popular pizza in Iowa City is the Palace Special, which consists of sausage, beef, pepperoni, onion, and mushroom. Shrimp pizza is another unique and popular item on the menu.
Pronunciation
The correct pronunciation as confirmed by the Pagliai family is "POLLYEYE".
There is also an unrelated Pagliai's Pizza in Cape Girardeau, Mo
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.