This story, originally written in 1999, isn't about Naomi as much as it's about Severio - read on to find out who he was. But it's about one of our favorite experiences as a young couple, both before and after the birth of our oldest child, Jesse. Hope you enjoy it.
Last week we took the kids to Pauline’s Pizza: San Francisco pizza upscale style, the restaurant filled with young couples rather than the families with kids that dominate the Domino’s market. The waiter came and gave us the daily specials: salad, meat and vegetarian pizzas, even dessert of the day.
The menu talked about using only organic vegetables, and said, “Since our opening in 1985, we have been dedicated to quality.” Since 1985? That was the beginning of the end, when Pauline’s creator -- the real Pizza Man -- brought in his monied, yuppie partners and created Pauline’s Upscale. Within a year or two, the Pizza Man, Saverio Archuletti, was gone.
In the old days, Saverio made pizza so good that the food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the only question about Pauline’s was whether it was “the best pizza in San Francisco or the best pizza in the world.” I first went there in 1973, a transplanted New Yorker who read in an underground paper that Pauline’s was the place for “New York-style” pizza. It was near our house and we went often, maybe twice a month. When my first son was born in 1976, we took him with us in a portable crib.
It was indeed the best pizza in the world, better even than Mario’s back east. The crusts were crisp and fluffy, the everything-on-it special was a sumptuous treat with or without the anchovies. And the pesto pizza, an entirely new experience that some say Saverio invented, was out of this world.
Saverio’s pizza place was in the working-class Mission district, in an enormous cavern of a storefront that must have been a nightclub in a prior life. Except for the pizza ovens and one pinball machine in front and the soda cooler all the way in back, the place was almost barren, the restaurant area itself much too large for the occasional formica-topped tables with their plastic red-and-white-checkered tablecloths. It was almost barren of customers, too. Despite its reputation as the best pizza in town, Pauline’s rarely had more than a few customers, most of them getting take-out. There were times when we were the only people sitting at a table.
Some customers may have been put off by the giant interior, so vast that when Jackie, the only waitress, went in back to get our cokes, you could see her disappear into the haze of the old nightclub ballroom before turning into the small lighted cooler area and returning with coke bottles in hand. But the lack of business probably had more to do with the fact that Saverio was a poor marketer. Actually, he was a terrible marketer.
At a time when California cuisine was starting to gain recognition (Chez Panisse had recently opened), Pauline’s was the anti-California cuisine. But Saverio had a low tolerance for most traditional pizza customers. Kids were noisy and caused trouble. So were softballers swilling post-game pitchers of beer. Even the people ordering to go were trouble-makers. Saverio would only make pizzas to go for people who pre-registered with names, addresses, and phone numbers that he wrote down in a notebook. He’d assign each a special number to use when ordering. No delivery; you had to pick it up yourself. As our son grew too old to take with us, we got ourselves a take-out number. It was 187.
Towards the end of his run, Saverio became suspicious even of the take-out orders. When I’d call to order an extra-large with everything, Saverio would bark back in his thick Italian accent, “No orders to go!” I’d say “Wait, I’m number 187,” and Saverio would reply, “OK, 187, 187, I know you, OK.”
When we could, though, we ate our pizza there. We liked the old-world charm of the cavern, Jackie’s heels clicking on the linoleum as she retreated to the cooler for another coke, the cardboard boxes that said “Pauline’s Pizza Pie,” and, most of all, the pinball machine. The machine seemed ancient, a relic from the ‘50's, though it probably wasn’t that old. The object was to knock down all the pool balls lit up on the machine. Each time a pool ball light was hit, a small plastic ball with the corresponding number would pop into place on the top of the machine. Get all 15, get a replay. When he was not busy with his pizza chores Saverio played pinball.
As I look back on it, though, the biggest attraction (after the world’s best pizza, of course) was Saverio himself. He was crusty and complaining, but he was a character. He was justifiably proud of his pizza, but at times seemed even more proud of his pinball prowess. He’d step aside for favored customers like us, then stand behind us and kibbutz incessantly: “No, look out! Flippa, flippa, you gotta flippa! Left side, left side! Now destra! Noooo!” as the ball dropped down. I once asked Saverio why he named his place “Pauline’s.” He told me it was his mother’s name, though something in his manner made me doubt it. That and the fact that at first he had told me his name was “Paul.” He was just keeping it simple so he wouldn’t have to explain. But I believed him when he said his mother taught him how to make pizza.
Saverio eventually moved out of the cavern when the owner raised the rent. Not making enough for his own place, he moved a couple of doors up Mission Street to share space with a Chinese restaurant, which changed its sign to “CHINESE FOOD & PIZZA.” It was soon after this that the Chronicle review came out. That wonderful review proved to be a disaster. Young couples lined up out on Mission Street waiting to order pizza. Saverio still took to-go orders (if you had an official number.) Business was never better. But no one was eating Chinese food. The owner of the Chinese restaurant became resentful, and one day without warning he changed the locks and held Saverio’s treasured pizza ovens hostage.
Somehow the Chronicle food critic found out I was a steady customer and (by this time) a lawyer. He called me to see if I could help Saverio get his ovens back. I made a few calls and others did too. Finally, Saverio got his ovens and financial backing to open up at the current location, but this was not a match made in heaven. Saverio never fit in with the yuppie crowd, and within a year or two, he sold his interest in the business and left.
Pauline’s goes on, with no public acknowledgement of its rich history. They still make the pesto pizza the way Saverio did, with the cheese in the pesto, not on top. The pizza is good, though the crusts are not quite as crisp, the ingredients not quite as flavorful. They put pine nuts on the pesto now. They still have Saverio’s book of “to-go” numbers; my “187" is in there, but I no longer need it to order, and I wonder whether the waiter who takes my order even knows the book exists. The worst thing, though, is that Pauline’s pays no homage to its creator. Beneath Saverio’s grumpy exterior beat the heart of, well, a Pizza Man.
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