Pudgie's Pizza

I am a total sucker for 80's nostalgia. I think it's an inherent desire for people to cling onto the time period of their childhood. I read an interview with Huey Lewis a few months back... no scratch that... I was watching some Back to the Future DVD bonus footage a few months back and Huey was saying that if he could live in any time period, it would be the 50's. I'm guessing that's probably because that's the decade HE grew up in. I guess that's pretty obvious... we find comfort in returning to that world that surrounded us when we didn't have to worry about taxes or scabies and such.

Anyway, there is one crown jewel of my 80's world that I thought was lost forever in the abyss of the modern day but in fact it is in full force and rocking the 80's aesthetic harder and truer than Hot Topic could ever dream of. It is a fine establishment and PUDGIE'S PIZZA be thine name.

FNA, man. F.N.A. If you were a kid in the Finger Lakes (or some lucky surrounding areas of Upstate NY, Southern Tier and Northern PA) in the MF 80's and you ate food, then you know the absolute greatness of a Pudgie's Party Pizza. Every goddamn sleepover, birthday party, Pizza Day or really any function that involved 4 or more children warranted the purchase and consumption of a fucking awesome Pudgie's Party Pizza. Pardon my language, but this shit gets me going...

And the Pudgies storefronts were beautiful and a-plenty: the small brown and beige squared-off buildings adorned with a bright orange computery-lettered signage could be found up and down Routes 5&20 from Seneca Falls to Geneva. That's right, in that short 12 mile stretch of road that connected 2 dinky villages and one small city you could find THREE (3) Pudgie's Pizzas. It was absolutely breathtaking. The sight of a Pudgie's is almost as sweet as the red sauce that's generously spread atop that giant rectangular pie of joy that is the Pudgie's Party Pizza (OK, "PPP" from here on out).

Notice in that last sentence I switched to the present tense ("is"). That's right. Despite the fact that all 3 Pudgies that I mentioned earlier went out of business no less than 10-15 years ago, Pudgies is still cranking out PPP's like it's 1984. I guess I just wasn't looking in the right places, I live in a bubble and I am a miserable, disgusting failure. Well, sometime in September I was rolling through Canandaigua up to Farmington to check out a good friend's new house and I just about shit my pants when I saw a that there is fully operational mothership on the west side of North Main Street. Fucking unreal. It was just how I had remembered it. But surely the pizza couldn't taste the same as it did 20 years ago.... fuck that.

It can.

It do.

The PPP is alive and well and just a bite of one of its thick, square slices will be enough to make you forget all about pubes and debit cards and Lindsay Lohan's sad anorexic state. The happy memories of 2600s, 5200s, 7800s, 8675309s and US-1 Trucking will just come pouring back in your head, your heart and your soul.

This is only the beginning. I'm going to get a PPP for dinner tonight... after that tirade, how can I not?

BTW: Pudgie's has a website. (Best viewed in IE)