When I was a kid, the Salerno family bought the tavern just down the alley from us on 16th Street. I was 12 when, in 1966, they reopened it as a pizza restaurant. Among other things, the small building’s conversion improved the alley’s aroma … the smell of those delicious, baked cheesy pies wafted along the garages, drifting north, toward 15th.
I had nothing against the tavern, but it was nice to know that our big, bullying neighbor, Harold, would no longer come staggering from it to his backyard gate, cussing at us occasionally as we played baseball. Once we hit a ball into his yard. He got belligerent enough to prompt Dad to run out from our rear porch and tell him to back off, which he did.
But Salerno’s accomplished more than improving the quality of alley life. They baked this delicious, signature pizza that, as far as I was concerned, beat whatever else we had been buying — from outfits like Chicken Delight and Rene’s. The little tavern-turned-restaurant became a go-to place for families all around. It evolved as part of the neighborhood. People had fun there: my sister Mary and her friend Marge would challenge each other to see who could eat a Baby Pizza the fastest.
The restaurant’s family became familiar to people on the block. One of the owners’ sons came to our house for Dad’s CCD class. The restaurant expanded from the tavern’s lot, taking up more of the space between Clarence and Wesley.
Today, a Salerno’s resides in Oak Park on the north side of Roosevelt across from Maple Park. Just recently, we dined there. Maureen ate a salad and sipped minestrone. I ordered minestrone and a traditional, medium pizza. It was a Monday: the pies were half-priced. I took a lot home.
When I anticipate eating there now, romantic images of the original place at the end of our alley drift up from my unconscious. I can imagine a pizza from back then almost like I’m holding a piece in my hand. In my mind, I’m tearing into that sumptuous, juicy cheese while sharing the pie with friends. The name Salerno’s carries its own glow. It changed our neighborhood for the better. Couched in all the memories, it means “pizza” like no other brand.
When I’m physically there, the working reality of today’s place brings me to the present. After sitting in our booth for a few minutes, the older, romanticized aura from my youth lifted a bit, and the place showed what it is today: a thriving, friendly dining venue at 12th and Maple: different in size, design and staffing, with an expanded menu and more diverse clientele, compared with the original one on 16th. But it’s still about that pizza!
A couple of weeks before eating at Salerno’s, Maureen and I caught the production of Romeo and Juliet by Festival Theatre in Austin Gardens. In that famous play, Italian names matter too. Tortured over how a family feud stood in the way of true love, Juliet proclaimed, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
In my case, with the history and memory that come with this Italian Oak Park restaurant, once located so close to my old home, it’s this pizza that, by any other name, would seem incomplete.
