Pizza and Communication

A couple of decades ago my husband and I discovered a small pizza and sandwich shop named Vesipucci’s.  I do not remember how we heard about Vesipucci’s, but I do remember that they featured a sandwich called a nightmare, and that their pizza was the best I’d ever had.

A few years later the owner opened a new location in Portland after selling the Lewiston shop.  Pete and I began planning pizza picnics, and quite often planned errands in Portland around lunchtime so we could stop in and buy our favorite pizza (ham and pepperoni).  Owner Dave recognized us when we stopped in for pizza, and we encouraged him to sell the Portland location and open a new branch closer to our home.  Dave would laugh at our suggestions but refused to commit.

Last fall we noticed staff changes in the Portland location, and we were disappointed by the quality of the pizza we bought.  A month later I tried calling for a pizza, and was informed that they wouldn’t have pizza dough ready for a few hours.  Really?  No pizza dough available on a Saturday afternoon?  What was the world coming to?

We grieved.  Perhaps that’s an exaggeration… then again, maybe not.  Vesipucci’s pizza was not merely tasty in its own right, but was tied to memories of early dates and picnics.  And the sandwich they called a nightmare – 4 meats, 4 cheeses, veggies and seasoned oil on their own homemade bread.  Nothing like it anywhere.

Yesterday my aunt pointed out an article in the local paper – Vesipucci’s was back in Lewiston!  Of course that meant Pete and I needed to go out for pizza last night.  I called in our pizza order, and was told it would be ready in twenty minutes.  Hooray!  Would it be the pizza we remembered?

It turns out we are not the only ones with fond memories of Vesipucci’s. The place was mobbed when I arrived, and I wound up waiting another half hour to collect my pie.  Was it worth the wait? Absolutely!  It was devine.  Though Vesipucci’s is now close enough to home to bring a hot pizza with us, we decided to honor tradition and eat in a scenic spot overlooking the river, as we used to when we bought pizza from the Portland location.  It was a very tasty meal, and we enjoyed watching the river flow by as we ate.

What does this have to do with communication?  I wish I’d known prior to yesterday’s newspaper article that Dave sold the Portland location and was working on a move back to Lewiston.  And it would have been nice if the young woman working the register could have predicted I had another half hour to wait and shared that information with me.  I heard several other customers grumbling about the wait… if they’d had more accurate time estimates, perhaps they’d have waited more patiently.

So why this blog post?  I am working on Farley Bend, Volume II.  If you want to know how that’s coming, please click on the ‘add a comment’ link below and ask to be added to the Farley list.  I’ll let you know how things are going, and what you might expect for a publication date for Volume II.

 

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