Our pizza dough is made fresh daily, using only six ingredients. You can pronounce and spell all of them, and so can your kids. It has about a 36-hour life span, never being frozen, only refrigerated. We roll fresh pie shells daily and toss out the left over at the end of business the day it's rolled. That’s a far cry from other shops that buy frozen and preservative filled dough that can be re-frozen at the end of the day.
Our cheese is from Wisconsin, and shredded in house daily. No powdered "de-caking" agents needed here. Our pepperoni and sausage are local products, from local vendors and delivered multiple times a week to insure freshness. Our fresh produce comes directly from the Port Columbus Produce Terminal and our bread is from the best Italian bakery in town, also delivered multiple times a week. Our Mushrooms are blanched and shipped from Pennsylvania, not canned in some third world Asian country. All of our sauces and soups are made from scratch in house, following family recipes handed down from generation to generation.
All of this seems to be lost in today's market. I have salesmen come in regularly trying to sell me products to make things "easier". But as one great Ohioan named Woody once said "There is nothing easy that’s worth a damn." I believe that to be true. Easier in the food business means frozen, not fresh- preservative filled, not wholesome- flavorless, not flavorful, and not what Catalfino's is all about. That philosophy even influences our choice in pizza ovens. We use natural gas fired, brick lined deck pizza ovens. The old school type that hasn't changed much in the past 50 years. We will never use conveyor belt ovens that cook the outside of your pizza so fast that the inside is left gooey. Besides, conveyor belts are for factories, not kitchens.
I was my father's partner for 15 years, and he taught me a lot about life and the pizza business in that time. One of the most important lessons was about integrity. When a person puts their name on their business, they have a responsibility to every member of their family to be the best that they can be at what they do. I'm proud to carry on our family business, proud to be accountable to our customers on a daily basis, and proud to offer the menu you see on this web site.
Thank You for the 37 years of support Columbus
James Catalfino |
