Mary’s new venture offers pizza by the slice

All new Slice Shack a cut above at Mary’s|

Mary’s Pizza Shack staff has been practicing and perfecting its Slice Shack service for a few weeks and opens “softly” today, Friday, Sept. 23, just in time for Vintage Festival weekend.

Vince Dito, food and beverage manager for all of Mary’s, is heading up the new venture.

Dito exuded excitement about the Slice Shack on my KSVY radio show last Friday, and invited me to stop by later that morning for a test run. And did I run!

I walked into a training session in the new Slice Shack and recognized at least half of the guys, all in black Mary’s shirts, and some in black Slice Shack shirts.

Mary’s has taken over what was a small gift and garment shop next door to the Spain Street Mary’s Pizza Shack, and the Lelys have been remodeling the space. Incidentally, the Lelys created the whole gorgeous wood-lined interior of Marioni’s restaurant, long ago painted and replaced by Mary’s, but the Marioni family still owns the building.

With Vince Dito as the guide, the staff is training a full complement of new employees as well as themselves on their new pizza-by-the-slice operation.

Key to producing good pizza with crispy crusts quickly are the two new Italian (of course) ovens that can heat the pizza to 600 degrees. The pizza crusts are still thrown up in the air and spun by hand, sauced or not, and a few fixed slice flavors include pepperoni, Hawaiian Luau, pepperoni and mushroom, pesto and two toppings, Mary’s Combo, and La Romana with oven-roasted tomatoes, Italian artichoke hearts, feta, mozzarella, provolone and pesto sauce.

Or you can “build your own” with pesto or tomato sauce and lots of toppings you just point to at the counter.

Salads are available, too. House and Caesar are both under $12, as well as breadsticks and a whole new takeaway, a huge meatball in a medium sized bread bowl topped with tomato sauce and cheese.

Mary’s Slice Shack has the corner on Pepsi’s new Stubborn fountain drinks, Pepsi’s new brand of cane sugar sodas called Caleb’s. And then there are takeaway brownies and chocolate chip cookies in case you need one for the park or the car.

Mary’s has come a long way from that original little shack (house) we started going to 40 years ago when Janet Nicholas and I took our kids there one evening when our husbands were out of town, and it snowed. Now every time any of the kids come home, the first place we have to go is to Mary’s. 14 W. Spain St. 938-9290. Maryssliceshack.com.

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