Santa Lucia Pizza had made their first giant, 30-inch pizza out of their Niverville location. The auspicious occasion took place on Friday, February 9.
Nighthawks board member Will Cuccaro placed the order to surprise his poker club in celebration of their twentieth year of playing together. Neil Crockford and Rich Roberts, friends of Cuccaro who picked up the order, were unaware of the size of the pizza until they arrived.
“We do Super Bowl weekend poker tournament every year and we’ve been doing it for like 20 years,” said Cuccaro. “In twentieth year celebration fashion, we went kind of big and we ordered the biggest pizza we could find from in town.”
When Santa Lucia first became interested in opening in Niverville, they partnered with the Nighthawks to provide pizza at events. Their work ethic and quality food impressed Cuccaro. And since Cuccaro’s daughter works at the newly opened takeout restaurant, he had promised her he would be the first one to place an order for the giant pizza.
“It’s the whole relationship-building thing that this has turned into,” says Cuccaro. “They were a huge supporter for us in our first season. It was a long time running for them to get up and running for the [Niverville location], but it’s great to see them up and running. So we said, we’ll order the first big one.”
Dean Delorme, co-owner of the Santa Lucia Niverville, was excited to see the order for the large pie come in. Having worked for the company for a long time, he has seen the giant pizzas made before, but it was exciting to see his new ovens put to the test.
Daryl Joachim, manager from Steinbach’s Santa Lucia, even came out to help oversee the first giant pizza bake to help ensure that it went off without a hitch.
“Santa Lucia makes the largest pizza in Manitoba, but this is our first one done in Niverville,” says Delorme. “We have to have the screen we put it on custom-made and the takeout box is custom-made. It’s massive. It would be neat to see how much one of these things weighs.”
Delorme says that the box, unfolded, is more than six feet long. The pizza barely fits into their pizza oven and it has to be handled carefully.
“I got the biggest oven available, the largest one you can purchase,” he says. “It’s 32 inches wide at the belt. It will nicely handle this size pizza.”
Each giant pizza is made to order and customized with whatever the customer wants. Cuccaro’s pizza was barbecue chicken and meat lovers with jalapenos and a pepperoni design on the top of it.
“If someone orders this, you can have any toppings you want on the pizza or any kind of design, or we can do words on the top out of toppings. You name it. People want all kinds of custom or strange things. We don’t say no. It’s fun and we make the pizza they way they want it to be made.”
Delorme says that the pizza will feed 10 to 15 people.
According to Cuccaro, it was massive, delicious, and their group couldn’t even finish it.
