``Pushpa, your pizza's ready!''
Cicero's Pizza workers sing out the welcome news in their
spacious new store. Pushpa smiles as she fetches the pizza for her
table.
Much of Cupertino and West San Jose is smiling since Cicero's
reopened in June. Among the testimonials recorded in the
register-side guest book:
``Do not ever, I mean ever close again. We will hunt you
down and drag you back to cook.''
``I've lost 35 pounds since you closed, but I'm glad you're
back.''
``You guys make the best pizza. Even though I'm
lactose-intolerant I still can't resist your pizza.''
Upstate New York-style Cicero's pies are thin and foldable. The
original crust, which comes from Niagara Falls, N.Y., is spotted
golden brown on the underside, from baking on a film of canola oil
in a metal pan. It lacks the carbon-burned forcefulness of many East
Coast pizzas. But it's tasty enough, just the same.
Whole-milk mozzarella melts into a sparingly applied, sweet-tart
tomato sauce that stretches all the way to the edges. You don't see
a graveyard of crusts when you leave Cicero's.
The plain cheese runs $6.25 for an eight-inch pie, $9.25 for a
12-inch, $12 for a 16-inch.
Though now technically in San Jose, Cicero's displays photos of
old Cupertino, where Nunzio Cicero opened his first store in 1961.
Why, there are flats of apricots drying in the sun, apricot orchard
workers in vests and ties, and apricot blossoms.
Parents will be glad that video games are closeted in a
glassed-in room.
Nunzio Cicero started at Stevens Creek and Saratoga-Sunnyvale
Road, as Pee-Wee's Pizza. The name changed to Coppola's, then to
Cicero's, and in 1988 the store moved down a couple blocks to Blaney
Avenue. A month after closing Cicero's Pizza last summer, the
founder died at 87. The new Cicero's is run by Nunzio Cicero's
son-in-law, Bob LaVerdi, and grandson Rik Jones.
Cicero's Special ($8.25, $12.75 and $15.50) has chopped black
olives, mushrooms and melted mozzarella mingling with slips of spicy
pepperoni and salami.
Other combos include the No Meat Treat (cheese, mushrooms,
sausage, onions, bell peppers) and the Vegetarian (cheese,
jalapeņos, onions, fresh tomatoes, bell peppers) and the Belly
Buster, which adds sausage and bell peppers to Cicero's Special.
Or, design your own. It just won't be a designer pizza. Cicero's
fanciest add-ons are Canadian bacon and linguica. You want bacon
bits, no problem.
But if you want lasagna, spaghetti or dessert, big problem.
Cicero's Pizza is the name of a focused enterprise. Eat in or take
out, no delivery. The two non-pizza items are a house salad ($2) and
a Caesar salad ($3.25). The latter has crisp iceberg and Romaine
lettuces, with bready croutons and dry toothpicks of Mozzarella. You
may need to reach for the sprinkles of mozzarella and red-pepper
flakes in baby-food jars with holes poked in the lids, the way
children keep captured bugs.
Cicero's has a few beers on tap, sufficient imports and domestics
in bottles, and Franzia Vintner Select Merlot ($2 a glass) in the
wine department. Diners get a 5 percent discount on bottles at the
Wine Rack, next door, but if there's a sign announcing this
arrangement, I missed it.
If they know you at Cicero's, they'll call you by name. If not,
it's like passing through a small town. The counter staff and the
customer chat, and then:
``All right, Alice. G'bye!''