Hollywood. Raquel Welsh. Great Pizza. They say it in the same breath!!
If you can imagine that.
A New York hustler moved to Beverly Hills with the message: "I got duh New Yawk Pizza",--which is nuh'fin' dey ain't heard befo'!
Of course: Ya need a celeb to sell anything. A big one. Big two, better yet.
Ya been to L.A. recently? Every corner got New Yawk Pizza for sale. So dis guy-a former triple A Yankee pitcher-opens pizza joints in Beverly Hills, Encino and another in Orange (Orange Country, CA.-where the airport is named for the Duke, John Wayne himself).
The marketing concept is simple: bring quality pizza to the hoi polloi of California, and make 'em pay for the stuff.
Of course DeMarco and I had the idea in Santa Barbara 20 years ago: feed the Californians some real East Coast pie. We had the guy: his Dad: Matt DeMarco, a fine Italian boy from Hartford's south end. Problem: he didn't want to leave the East Coast, just to sell pie and make money. Damn! (Plus we did not think the locals would recognize real pizza back then. Maybe we were wrong, but who knew?)
So this mook does it: and marries Raquel Welsh in the process.
His name is Richie Palmer. He's 45. She's Raquel. These pizza joints are doing huge business, due to the cachet of svelte Ms. Welsh, and partly to his line of jive.
"You go through L.A. and all you see is 'New York Pizza. New York Pizza", he told the New York Post recently.
Now he is opening another near Denver, Colorado. They're all called "Richies" and he says: "There's not a decent slice of pie in L.A. but (sic) mine. I'm the best. Better than 99 percent of them in New York. New Yorkers come in here all the time and tell me there's nothing like this in New York," he says with a straight face.
Some money folks liked his pie, and when they heard the guy was with Raquel Welsh, one of our most subtle actresses, they said: "Go L.A."
Now, I've lived in L.A. and true, there was a Boston Pizza store on Venice Boulevard but not much else to eat back then. But this is fraud on a Californian scale, yet I am betting Raquel and her 45 year old dough-boy gwine pull dis one off.
Only because the masses are, as they say, asses. And because N.Y. pie is better than nothing.
The guy opened his first joint on Mulberry Street, and he was personally linked to Cathy "Raging Bull" Moriarty (plus so many cameos, an actual quality babe). Richie is obviously able with the women.
But Pie?
The toast of L.A. the big shots are enamored-and buying "New York Pizza" from Richie and Raquel when those of us who know pizza know that N.Y. Pie is second best at best. Connecticut has superior pizza without question.
Tell that to the script writers in Hollywood, and by the way, the writers in Bollywood (India) the same thing!
New York Pizza: Ms. Welsh is doing the hype. This fair actress with strong assets! And her guy is getting the full media treatment from the columnists and the food writers.
Be wary, West Coast Scowl readers: it's NY pie. Certainly edible, but by no means necessary to the diet of those of us who require primo pie, every day or at least, every week.
Such pie is here of course, in Connecticut, where our pizza whups New York, but it just doesn't sound right when you are marketing an "idea", like Mr. R. Welsh is doing. "New Yawk Pizza".
If you go, bring plenty cash.