Arriving at Knoebels on a beautiful summer day, people look forward to having a relaxing day off from their busy lives. From the rides to the food, Knoebels offers it all. Walking through the park, one feels the excitement in the air, sniff the delicious scents coming from many different stands, but there is one particular place that always seems to pull people in. That place is none other than Cesari's Pizza. As one walks towards the building, they can smell the deliciousness in the air and can hear a familiar tune if one has ever been there previously. "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore."
Knoebels is a family owned amusement park which opened its gates in 1926. Since then, it has won many awards for its rides and food. Although Knoebels has been open for close to a century, Cesari's wasn't established until the spring of 1981. The shop was owned by Angela Cesari along with her brother and parents. Over the years, Angela's parents decided to give full ownership to both her and her brother Brian. They lived up to the expectations of being full time business owners and had a wonderful experience doing it. In 2001, Brian died from a fatal heart attack, leaving Angela as the sole owner.
"This pizza is definitely the best I've ever had," twenty-three year old employee Christa states. Christa, a short, stern, blonde-haired woman, has worked at the restaurant for nine years. Now a supervisor, she thinks back to the days when she was first employed by Angela Cesari-Martini. From bad times to the good times, Christa reminisces on her past years. "Some of my best friends were made here. I've made so many great friends and met some great people working here throughout the years. This place is definitely one of my favorite places in the world, but I wish it would close a little earlier." The park closes at ten p.m. every night except for Sundays, when closing is at nine p.m.
Standing in front of the large, Roman-like structure, people crowd the lines to get their hands on the award winning food the place has to offer. Smells of Italian food flood the nostrils of thousands of visitors a day, mesmerizing them as they patiently wait for even just one slice of pizza. Walking up the small gravel path to one of the six queues to begin their wait, people stare into the shop where the cashiers greet each customer with a smile and ask them the question they have been patiently waiting for, "Hi, how can I help you!"
"I'd like to order a large pepperoni pie please." "I need two slices of mushroom pizza and a large drink." "Do you have any Stromboli ready?" These questions are asked several times a day by hundreds of customers. The cashiers, all dressed in the same uniform, a teal blue T-shirt and a black visor, take each order and prepare it individually. When ordering slices of pizza, they immediately get to work, moving their way towards the person behind the island that is situated in the middle of the shop, where the pizza is dressed in specific toppings and put into the small oven adjacent to them for preparation. After a few minutes, the slices are moved from the oven to either a plate or complementary box, and are given to the soon-to-be satisfied customer (See Figure 1). For whole pie orders, the cashier writes the order down and gives it to the guys in the back, who read each individual slip and prepare each pizza to perfection. If they get lucky, sometimes customers get a bird's eye view of them taking the dough, stretching it out, and watching with amazement as they twirl it into a perfect circle, sometimes throwing it into the air to satisfy one of the many pizza making cliches.
After getting their complete orders, customers then can move from the queues to the grand patio on the side of the main building. Under the patio sits generic-looking picnic tables, surrounded by smaller, salmon-colored, hexagonal tables, each adorned with a large blue and white umbrella that shades the customers from the heat of the sun. When ordering an entire pie, a customer is given a place holder, which is in the shape of a pizza with a number on it. They are to place it on their table so that when their pizza has been finished, an employee will come out with their order and bring it to their table. "This is so delicious!" they can hear from another table while waiting for their order.
"You can have all the money in the world, but you can never buy more time," Angela Cesari explains while sitting at her desk working through a clutter of papers. Though both items have high importance to a variety of people, Angela places time over money in the matter of importance. Being the sole owner of a very popular restaurant, Angela works from six-thirty in the morning to eleven-thirty at night every single day from late April to late October. "You learn to appreciate your free time when you don't have much of it," she adds as she goes to grab a pen. Her office, a small bungalow hole in the back of the establishment, is a main getaway from the stress and heat of each day. She talks about not only the struggles of being the only owner of a business, but some of the greatest things in return that she has received from it. "I've learned to work with many different personalities. I've also become extremely organized in all aspects of life, not just work itself. Disciplining is something I never look forward doing, but sometimes it has to be done. Not only disciplining my employees, but sometimes disciplining myself in certain situations."
Although things may always seem to run smoothly, there's always a small kink here and there. Not every customer is going to be happy and willing to cooperate with the cashiers or any other employees, Angela reveals. "This one time there was this guy who came up to one of our counters, cutting in front of many customers, screaming how he's been waiting over an hour for his pie. I had went and looked at his order and it just so happened he had only been sitting there for ten minutes. When I went to tell him, he called me a liar, and preceded to make a huge scene screaming about how terrible we were and telling people to take their money somewhere else. I later refunded the man for his food, gave him a smile, and told him to have a good day. After dealing with him, many people came up to me who were behind him in line and apologized for his behavior. Yeah, you'll never be able to please every person in the world, but the people that you can please is well worth it."
Cesari's Pizza isn't just a restaurant to a lot of people, it's a second home, a vacation, an old friend. So many people look forward to coming back and remembering past memories of fun, food, and fantasy. At the end of the day, after the stomachs of so many people have been filled with the happiness of pizza, people prepare to return to their cars and drive back to their normal, busy lives. They aren't thinking of what they will be doing the next day, however. They will be thinking of when the next time they can come back and enjoy another slice of pizza, humming along to those famous lines heard from shop, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore."
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| A Ferris Wheel, located at the beginning of the park. |
Knoebels is a family owned amusement park which opened its gates in 1926. Since then, it has won many awards for its rides and food. Although Knoebels has been open for close to a century, Cesari's wasn't established until the spring of 1981. The shop was owned by Angela Cesari along with her brother and parents. Over the years, Angela's parents decided to give full ownership to both her and her brother Brian. They lived up to the expectations of being full time business owners and had a wonderful experience doing it. In 2001, Brian died from a fatal heart attack, leaving Angela as the sole owner.
"This pizza is definitely the best I've ever had," twenty-three year old employee Christa states. Christa, a short, stern, blonde-haired woman, has worked at the restaurant for nine years. Now a supervisor, she thinks back to the days when she was first employed by Angela Cesari-Martini. From bad times to the good times, Christa reminisces on her past years. "Some of my best friends were made here. I've made so many great friends and met some great people working here throughout the years. This place is definitely one of my favorite places in the world, but I wish it would close a little earlier." The park closes at ten p.m. every night except for Sundays, when closing is at nine p.m.
Standing in front of the large, Roman-like structure, people crowd the lines to get their hands on the award winning food the place has to offer. Smells of Italian food flood the nostrils of thousands of visitors a day, mesmerizing them as they patiently wait for even just one slice of pizza. Walking up the small gravel path to one of the six queues to begin their wait, people stare into the shop where the cashiers greet each customer with a smile and ask them the question they have been patiently waiting for, "Hi, how can I help you!"
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| The menu lists everything that can be purchased that day. |
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| Figure 1 |
"You can have all the money in the world, but you can never buy more time," Angela Cesari explains while sitting at her desk working through a clutter of papers. Though both items have high importance to a variety of people, Angela places time over money in the matter of importance. Being the sole owner of a very popular restaurant, Angela works from six-thirty in the morning to eleven-thirty at night every single day from late April to late October. "You learn to appreciate your free time when you don't have much of it," she adds as she goes to grab a pen. Her office, a small bungalow hole in the back of the establishment, is a main getaway from the stress and heat of each day. She talks about not only the struggles of being the only owner of a business, but some of the greatest things in return that she has received from it. "I've learned to work with many different personalities. I've also become extremely organized in all aspects of life, not just work itself. Disciplining is something I never look forward doing, but sometimes it has to be done. Not only disciplining my employees, but sometimes disciplining myself in certain situations."
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| Can't wait to see you again! |
Cesari's Pizza isn't just a restaurant to a lot of people, it's a second home, a vacation, an old friend. So many people look forward to coming back and remembering past memories of fun, food, and fantasy. At the end of the day, after the stomachs of so many people have been filled with the happiness of pizza, people prepare to return to their cars and drive back to their normal, busy lives. They aren't thinking of what they will be doing the next day, however. They will be thinking of when the next time they can come back and enjoy another slice of pizza, humming along to those famous lines heard from shop, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore."
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