Peppa's celebrates 10 years of tasty success
Date: 10/12/2010
Oct. 11, 2010By Debbie Gardner
Assistant Managing Editor
EAST LONGMEADOW -- Their slogan is, "We're not just another pick-up joint."
A quick look at the menu at Peppa's Pizzeria by the Slice shows you why.
For starters, Peppa's offers customers 29 thin crust, New York-style specialty pizzas -- with 26 of them also available as thick-crust Sicilian-style pies -- plus three basic starter pies to which any combination of 16 traditional or 14 gourmet toppings can be added. Their menu also lists 13 salads, eight types of sandwich-style pizza rolls, 17 wraps, four toasted focaccia bread sandwiches and five signature calzones. Then there's a choice of 23 grinders, a dozen appetizers, a daily selection of pizzas available by the slice and soups in the winter months.
With that breadth of selection, it's clear this modest shop at 33 Harkness Ave. offers hungry customers more ways to satisfy their appetites than many restaurants, be they local or a national chain.
"We just try to be different than the business down the street," owner Pino DeGuglielmo said.
This October, Peppa's will celebrate 10 years at it's Harkness Village Plaza location and eight months at its Peppa's Xpress location, which opened at 1060 Wilbraham Rd. in January, with specials such as garlic knots for 10 cents each and an extra-large, one-topping pizza and a two-liter soda for $10.
DeGuglielmo and his wife, Roula, said overall, their first decade in business has been good.
"We have a good location, good staff, good customers, Roula said. "It was kind-of slow [in the beginning], but we built it up."
She attributes Peppa's steady growth in customers to her husband's flair for creating his signature New-York-style specialty pizzas, something he perfected while working at his family's restaurants in East Haven, Conn. He attributes the shop's success not only to the variety of pizzas on the menu, but also to his insistence on using the best possible ingredients, including freshly-chopped vegetables and the Mozzarella cheese that his pizza makers shred on site.
"Our most popular [pizza] is the white pizza with fresh spinach and eggplant," DeGuglielmo said. "But they get as crazy as French fries on a pizza."
In the warm months he said pizzas with fresh zucchini, summer squash and potato are popular. Year 'round, in addition to the white pizza, his buffalo chicken pizza is also a big seller.
DeGuglielmo said his shop is not only celebrating its 10th anniversary during October, it's also gearing up for a rush at the end of the month.
"Halloween is one of our favorite holidays," he said, "That's our busiest day."
And after the month-long anniversary specials end, Roula said customers will still find plenty of lunchtime and dinner specials at Peppa's.
"On Monday and Tuesday [nights] we have all-you-can eat slices and a drink, that goes over very well, " she said. "Monday and Tuesday lunch we have buy one wrap and get one half price, Wednesday and Thursday we have buy one salad get one at half price." Every lunch, customers can get two slices of cheese or pepperoni pizza and a soda for $4.25.
"We put [the specials] on the menu, but we still have to tell people," she said.
Peppa's East Longmeadow, tel. 525-7859, is open Mon. to Thurs. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sun. noon to 9 p.m. Peppa's Xpress in Springfield, tel. 796-7859, is open Mon. to Wed. 11 a.m. to midnight, Thurs. to Sat. 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. and Sun. noon to midnight.
