D' Pizza Joint

There's never any shortage of work to be caught up on around here, so lots of evenings we end up working late and don't eat till after 9pm. During most of the year, the Island is a pretty dead place on weeknights, and the litany of restaurants open is pretty limited. Mostly just fast food joints, a couple of after hour joints, and then D' Pizza Joint.

I first went to the place back in the early 90's, and it had already been opened for some time then. Small and way informal, it held an instant appeal. Now it has emerged as probably the hangout. Staffed by an eclectic mix, there's Mike the owners son, who seems to always be slaving away for his parents...sort of an indentured serventry. Mike is probably in his early to mid 30's, but the joint just wouldn't be the same without him, so I hope that his good nature continues to keep him there, he and his girlfriend Gina. She's Filipino and a real jewel...my Pansit queen, always smiling. Then there's Parke (Park-ee). Around 50 he's been there for about nine years. Parkes a bow hunting fool. I'm not sure if there exists a more generous and kind individual We had a fire back in 2003 that destroyed just about everything we owned. We were staying at a friends beach house, pretty much destitute a couple of weeks after the fire, when one night we decided to splurge and order a couple of pizzas to go. D and I like an alfredo sauce-anchovy-onion and mushroom, and the girls usually get a pepperoni. So I walked over there. The pizzas weren't ready yet, so I had a beer and told Parke the story. When the pizzas were ready, well, he wouldn't let us pay. We're going to get together with him for some competition pingpong/beer drinking/wild game barbequing...

Marvins' another employee there. I vacilate between liking and hating the guy. He's a certifiable islander, originally from somewhere else (like almost everybody...who's REALLY a local??) and crazy as shit...One of those types that still smokes pot and is proud of their addiction. The guy sometimes get's all shitfaced DURING work. It's hilarious, but if he's in a bad mood look out. Like Wednedays, the owners host a poker game for them and their cronies and they start really being assholes to the staff. "Marvin get me this, Marvin get me that...Mike why aren't you waiting on that table over there in the corner?...Parke...PARKE!!!" That's the time to avoid the place, and during real busy Saturdays too. One time Marvin pissed me off so bad we didn't go there for something like a month....

Finally theres the other Mike. Mike the piano guy. This guy plays piano for the place. He's a multitalented musician, real laid back, but lightning fast on the 88's. I don't think there's many songs he can't play or doesn't know. I hold musicians like that in awe. When the viejitos are there, they get him playing a lot of oldies but moldies, just singing along, which he really hates. Sometimes for perversity sake I'll shout out..."Hey Mike...how 'bout a little Chatanooga choo-choo" or maybe "little brown jug", really get those folks going.... dancing the jitterbug, or whatever the hell they do.

This winter there was this big fat retired guy from Wisconson that would make him play a song called "Johnny Verbeck"...about a sausage-makin'- machine. The guy acted like he was Dean Martin or some other lounge lizard. He had a whole repertoire of music that he'd corral Mike into playing so that he could sing...like a just offkey version of Jambalya.... by that time, I'd be laughing till tears were rolling down my cheeks...."Yea....I got yer sausage riight HERE!" Afterwards, he'd stroll around basking in fame (and the glow of five or six scotches)....probably hoping that someone would ask him for an autograph or frameable picture or something.

Anyway lots of nights, late, it's just D and I and whoever happens to be working. I guess one of the things that I'll always treasure are late night pitchers of Shiner Bock Beer and Muffalata and Ruben sandwiches.....