Pizzeria has been serving for decades

Four professors sat around a barely visible table with Italian hoagies, slices of… Four professors sat around a barely visible table with Italian hoagies, slices of extra-cheese pizza and napkins cluttering its surface. The man and three women in dress pants and shirts filled the small pizza shop with chatter and laughs.

“Hey! Where’s Pop?” Rosalind Santavicca yelled back to the kitchen. She leaned into the table and proudly added, “Pop always says he’s going to take me to Italy with him.”

“Pop tells all the girls he’s going to take them to Italy,” John Frechione, the man next to her, said with a dismissing flick of his hand

Sorrento’s Pizza Roma has seen its fair share of regulars in its 33-year run on Atwood Street. Chain restaurants may continue to pop up on Forbes and Fifth avenues, but the all-in-the-family atmosphere of Sorrento’s has kept some customers coming back for generations.

“Geez, how long have you been coming here?” Dolores Salvatore, the aunt of the current owner, asked the table of hungry regulars.

She guessed that it was since her kids were “this tall,” placing her hands about two feet from the ground.

“From babies to lawyers,” Shirley Kregar, another Pitt professor at the table, said. “Did you know her son’s a lawyer?” Kregar said boastfully as Aunt Salvatore modestly smiled.

The apron-wearing aunt comes in and helps her nephew, Steven D’Achille, who owns Sorrento’s with his cousin Aaron Price. Aunt Salvatore owned it before these two 20-something men. Before her, D’Achille’s grandfather owned it, but it was D’Achille’s father who first opened Sorrento’s in 1974.

The Sorrento’s family web may be complicated, but they like to keep everything else pretty simple.

Not much has changed since the store’s opening; the employees still toss their homemade dough and use their original-recipe sauce. They cook in the same brick ovens that D’Achille’s father traveled to New York to buy for the 1974 opening. And the red, plastic Coca-Cola clock on the wall looks just about as aged.

As the lunch hour of customers over 30 transitioned to the late-night hour of college students returning from parties, the mood changed, too.

“The Price is Right” is no longer played on the television, but the promise of $5 pizzas had many stumbling students thinking just that. The men in business suits were replaced with girls in tank tops who seemed to have not noticed, or cared, that it was around 30 degrees outside.

The polite women eating their pizza with forks and knives were replaced with a male student who accidentally knocked over two entire containers of plastic silverware. And discussions about meetings disappeared as yelling about who would pay two dollars and who would pay three filled the air.

This isn’t to say the late-nighters don’t become regulars, too.

Sophomore Ryan Evans said that Sorrento’s has “saved his life” on many occasions, where his late-night cravings can be met with “five dollars of goodness.”

Sorrento’s provides this service to many students; it’s open until 3 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, when they average between 250 and 300 pizzas a night.

One female customer seemed to have forgotten about her pizza as she showcased her moves to the sounds of “Your Mama Don’t Dance” while in the center aisle. She later knocked over a chair on her voyage to her friends’ table and continued the off-beat dance atop the booth’s red seat.

Ozzie Elliot, late-night pizza maker and uncle to the owner, said that all the ladies come in to see him. He’s not sure if it’s unique style (his St. Patrick’s Day ensemble included a green sequin bow tie and miniature vest) or his pizza-making skills.

“During high school I became a pro pizza maker,” Elliott said.

“The Wizard of Oz,” as some customers call him, said his 31 years of experience has allowed him to truly craft the art of pizza-making.

Elliot and other Sorrento’s family members immigrated to Pittsburgh in the late 1960s from Roccacinquemiglia, Italy. Aunt Salvatore said there are only 200 people left in the small town now because most followed to Pittsburgh.

“We all wanted to be able to look out for each other,” she said in an Italian accent. “And now Pittsburgh’s home, you know? It’s home.”

The tablecloth-sized Italian flag hanging on the wall alongside framed landscapes of Italian countryside and posters of Italy’s soccer teams show that they haven’t forgotten their roots.

But the family at Sorrento’s isn’t just about blood, as long-time employee Denny Weston will attest.

“It’ll be 11 years this April Fools Day,” Weston said about how long he’s been working at Sorrento’s.

“We adopted him. We love him,” Aunt Salvatore said.

Customers have long-term relationships with the pizza shop, too. Aunt Salvatore said many Pitt alumni will bring their own freshmen sons and daughters to Sorrento’s, telling them of their memories from way back.

“One girl always comes in here because she says we’re the only place that makes spaghetti sauce like her mom’s,” co-owner and former Pitt football player Aaron Price said.

“We’re old school, all the way through,” owner Steven D’Achille said as a woman went behind the counter to give the “Wizard of Oz” a hug.

“It’s hard work, but we get to know so many nice people,” Aunt Salvatore added.

The table of professors/Sorrento’s regulars finished their lunch break by walking back in to the kitchen to wash and put away their dishes.

Professor Kregar pointed to her plastic mug. “I hate Styrofoam, so they got us our own,” she said with a smile.

“Large pizza!” yelled out Aunt Salvatore as the phone rang repeatedly and the regulars gathered their things.

“Ciao,” they said to the Sorrento’s staff. “We’ll see you again soon.”