Pizza Pioneers in Northern Utah

When doing a Standard-Examiner story on Tony’s Pizza, an Ogden mainstay since 1963, I delved into some of Northern Utah’s pizza history.

Although today, pizza is as mainstream America as burgers, fries and hot dogs, it wasn’t always so.

According to food historians, “pizza pie” was mainly confined to Italian-American neighborhoods before World War II. When U.S. soldiers stationed in Italy came home with a desire for the food they had enjoyed overseas., local pizza parlors began springing up across America.

Chain restaurants followed. Little Caesars was founded in in 1957, Pizza Hut in 1958, and Domino’s in 1960.

I can’t document what restaurant served the first pizzas in Ogden. But I learned that it wasn’t Tony’s, which opened in October 1963.

One Ogden pizza pioneer was Rigo Del Carlo, owner of Rigo’s Restaurant on 2778 Washington Blvd. (My brother-in-law, Wynn Phillips, worked there as a teen.) According to an old Standard-Examiner ad, Rigo was from Italy, and during World War II was held as a prisoner of war near Hanover, Germany. After his release, he immigrated to America and came to Utah in 1948.

“I came to Ogden on a Sunday at 3 p.m.,” Del Carlo said in the ad. “On Monday I looked for work and found a job with the Southern Pacific Railroad. I worked with the railroad pick-and-shovel gang.”

A few months later, Del Carlo got a job with the Continental Baking Company on Grant Avenue in the Wonder Bread department. He kept the Wonder Bread job for five years before founding his own restaurant in 1954.

There’s also a 1957 ad promoting the restaurant’s pizzas, and a Standard-Examiner news story that mentions his private club, La Gabbia, opened in 1967. He also apparently ran the food service operations in the Ben Lomond Hotel, at least for awhile, according to the article.

Rigo Del Carlo and his restaurant are long gone, but my brother-in-law, Wynn Phillips, worked there as a teen from 1959-61 From what I gather, Rigo had an influence on Ogden’s dining scene.

“Well, I am here to tell you that we had pizzas!,” Wynn told me. “In fact, I personally delivered pizzas in boxes in 1959 on evenings and weekends. Then in 1960-1961, I moved to the kitchen and mixed, made, and cooked hundreds of pizzas. For a few years I had scars on my arm from oven burns using the spatula to get the pizza from the evening. We served a salad with the pizza, (oil & vinegar dressing) which was really good. I made the salad and dressing also.” 

Circle Inn Pizzeria in Clearfield (recently destroyed by a fire), opened in 1957. In Logan, Fredrico’s opened in 1958. Further south, Heaps A Pizza, forerunner to Brick Oven, opened in Provo in 1956. In Salt Lake City, some old-timers remember der Ratskeller, Gepetto’s, and Pipes and Pizza. None of these are in business today.

I remember going to Pipes and Pizza in when I was in high school in the early 1970s. It had long picnic-style tables where people sat to eat, and there were old black-and-white silent movies and an organ playing. It was quite a novelty at the time.

Who were some of the other pizza pioneers in Ogden? I turned to —where else — Facebook — for more information. An Ogden Boomers Reunion page yielded some more memories.

Palmieri’s, another Italian-American restaurant on Washington Blvd., apparently just north or 25th Street, was mentioned, by someone who used to work there in the late 1950s.

Several people mentioned Paisano’s on about 30th and Grant, which was founded by Ernest Durbano, who cooked there with his mother, Carmela. According to Durbano’s 2000 obituary, he also founded Durbano Warehousing, Durbano Metals of Ogden and America West Bank in Layton. He was a commissioner on the Utah State Liquor Control Commission. I couldn’t find any documentation on when Paisano’s opened, but his obituary stated that he was in stationed in Germany with the Air Force in 1952. After an honorable discharge as a Staff Sergeant, he came back to Utah, and worked first for SLC Air Traffic Control and later, was chief of the Ogden Control Tower until he went into business for himself. So my best guess is that he opened Paisano’s in the early 1960s. One commenter said he had a job cleaning the restaurant for Ernie around 1967.

I remember going to Paisano’s on a date around 1980-81, as it was my first time to try souvlaki, so I know it was still in business at that time.

Some other bygone Ogden pizzerias listed by Facebook commenters: Ye Old Pizza on 32nd and Washington (a poster remembered going there in 1964 and listening to an organist), Piccolo Bros Pizza, Shakey’s (a chain with a location on 36th and Riverdale), Zeb’s at 421 Washington Blvd., Grizzly Bear, and Big Bear Pizza. I remember going to the Godfather’s chain a few times in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 2017, Piccolo Bros Pizza announced on Facebook that it was closing, “after over 40 years.” Doing the math, it would likely have sometime opened around 1977.

Anyone with more accurate info than these guesstimates about early pizza in Ogden, PLEASE leave me a comment at the end of the article. I’d like to add any historic tidbits to set the record as straight as possible.

A few people mentioned Ogden Pizzeria on Washington Blvd., which is still in business. A few years ago I interviewed the owners, Valerie and Pat Simonich. They said they used the same classic crust and sauce recipes used when Valerie’s mother, Jean Alder, first worked there as a teen for owner Jay Packham. In 1974, Jean and her husband Doug Alder bought the place from Packham and ran it until Valerie and Pat Simonich bought it from her parents. A portrait of her parents hangs on the wall near the restaurant’s entrance.

The mega-chains have brought stiff competition to the local, independent pizzerias.

Tina Sanchez, daughter of Tony Toscan who runs Tony’s Pizza today, noted that for awhile, there was a Pizza Hut across the way from Tony’s. “But we’re still here and they’re not,” she said.

Tony’s has kept the same menu all these years. You won’t find trendy items like BBQ chicken, cauliflower crusts, or truffle oil.

“Our menu is the same as Day One, we’ve not added to it and we’ve not taken away from it,” noted Sanchez. “If it’s not broken, you don’t fix it.”

Black olives and pineapple are the only two toppings that have been added to the original menu, due to customer demand.

  “When I see restaurants with so many pages of a menu, I wonder how do you have that many items and keep them all fresh?” Sanchez said. “With a small menu, we can keep our quality high and our prices lower because we don’t have any waste.”

    The pizza menu is simple. You can order plain cheese, or a Tony’s Combo, or choose from a list of classic toppings such as pepperoni, green peppers, mushrooms, onions, ham, pineapple, ground beef, green and black olives, and Italian sausage. Anchovies, shrimp and jalapenos cost a little extra.

   Tony’s Combo is the top-seller —a thin-style crust loaded with pepperoni, sausage, ham, mushrooms, green peppers and green olives. Those green olives are a Tony’s tradition.

 “There have always been green olives on the pizza. People either love them or they don’t,” said Sanchez.

Tony’s also has four hot sandwiches. The meatball sandwich is the favorite.

There are also four four pastas — with rigatoni being the top-seller of the bunch. You can have any of these with a simple iceberg lettuce salad, tossed in the same house Italian dressing that’s been served all these years. No other dressing is offered, so don’t bother asking for ranch.

Tony’s history (from his daughter, Tina): Founder Tony Toscan grew up in Ogden. His parents, Philip and Anna Toscano, had both immigrated from Italy. They met and married in Ogden.

 “They dropped the ‘o’ off of their last name when Tony and his brother were in school, I’m not sure why. Maybe to fit in more,” Sanchez said.

  Toscan was working as a salesman for the Swift meat packing plant when he opened the restaurant. At first, he kept his day job and ran the restaurant after work, so it was only open for dinner. Tony’s mother would make a gallon of her signature spaghetti sauce each day, and Tony would pick it up from her on his way to work.

His wife, Carolyn, and her mother, Bobby Thomas, were the two servers, and a buddy helped him run the kitchen. Over the years, the restaurant tripled its original size. Toscan rented the building at first, then bought it.

Tina Sanchez worked at the restaurant from junior high through college.

After college graduation, she taught school and still worked part-time at Tony’s. About 25 years ago, she took a one-year leave of absence from teaching to help her dad run the restaurant after he had a heart attack and heart surgery. She never did go back, and continued to work with Tony, who passed away in 2015. During our conversation, she mentioned that had she she continued teaching school, she would already have in 30 years in for retirement.

  “This is not what I thought I would be doing at this age, but this is where my heart is,” she said.