Amore? Eyes on the 405's biggest pizza pie guy
Pizzabout will break down Oklahoma by the slice
Love is in the air for Rob Crissinger today, but not because the Hallmark company appropriated a Catholic saint and a Greek god to make a holiday. For Rob, love is in the air any time pizza is in the oven.
“Pizza will always love you back, Dave,” he told me on National Pizza Day last Friday.
The lovin’ from the oven born of crust, cheese, and sauce we call a big pizza pie? That’s amore, according to Rob. In good times and in bad, pizza has always been within Rob’s reach whether life offers celebration by the slice or hand-holding whole pies for waxing in woe.
I’m thrilled to share today that Rob has agreed to share his love of pizza with me and all of you by going on Pizzabout — a tour of the 405 diningscape, one slice at a time.
Because pizza and I have never clicked, it’s left me wondering whether I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong pizza. That’s where Rob come in to steer this Pizzabout around the Oklahoma City’s metro and, perhaps, beyond. We’ll celebrate the good, encourage the bad and run from the ugly.
Why Rob for Pizzabout? Because he was born to love pizza. It was practically in his blood thanks to grandparents who owned one of Ohio’s first pizzerias. Named Tasty Treat, the pizza joint operated in Washington Courthouse, Ohio, starting in the 1950s.
His heart has pumped pizza-loving blood ever since. He’s a man who not only loves eating pizza, but making it from scratch. He doesn’t look down his nose at frozen pizza, he simply adds goat cheese to it. He counts his trip to Frank Pepe’s in New Haven, Conn., as sacred. He loves all kinds of pizza, but when it comes to style he ranks Detroit No. 1, New York No. 2, Chicago No. 3, and French bread pizza No. 4 due to family tradition. Internationally, he ranks Neapolitan first, Roman second and the Sicilian style his Grandma made third.
Yes, Rob travels for pizza. Travel is another familial trait. The son of an air traffic controller, Rob’s family moved all over the country, including Illinois, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.
Initial arduous embers between Rob and pizza were lit at Straw Hat Pizza in his hometown of Livermore, California around 1978. Gone to Oklahoma the following year, he found love at Crystal’s Pizza where the fortune-teller lurked behind glass and spat the future for change. Off to Springfield, Ill., the pizza he couldn’t refuse came from Godfather’s.
“Springfield wasn’t much of a pizza town in 1981,” he said.
But these were young Rob’s initial flirtations; mere extensions of his birthright.
Things got serious, as matters of the heart will, in high school. The family was back in Livermore the day the valves in Rob’s heart first started pumping tomato sauce and pepperoni grease. This magic moment came the instant he laid his hands on a slice of heaven from Pinky’s Pizza. For an entire year at Granada High School, he and friends John Horn and Brian Digiovanni went to Pinky’s for lunch every day school was in session – plus plenty of weekends.
“My attendance was a lot better that year,” he told me over a slice of New York-style from Rendezvous Pizza in Bricktown.
Ever since leaving California, Rob’s been on a mission to find (or make himself) a pizza that compares to Pinky’s. That long-abiding love burst into flames in 2016 when he took a job as director of marketing and public relations with Hideaway Pizza. Their love was tested like never before when that job went up in smoke a year and a half later.
He is still a dedicated enthusiast for Hideaway. He loves the legendary pizzeria born ins Stillwater to this day. While he was there, Pepperonipalooza was born and it remains the No. 1 seller for the chain that grew from the seed planted in Stillwater to a regional chain.
Well-mended by the time Rob took a job with the Oklahoma State Department of Health, their love blossomed and went nuclear when the new gig and the COVID-19 pandemic put him in all 77 Oklahoma counties over the course of a year as he traveled the state. Rob and pizza hooked up in every pizza-bearing county Oklahoma has to offer. He counts that as an experience that opened his eyes to the state’s potential as a true pizza mecca.
Today, Rob is Executive Director of Communications for Epic Charter Schools and his love affair with pizza burns hotter than ever, but the same can’t be said for his personal life. His pizza-excellence-seeking hobby helped him through a devastating divorce three years ago, and has been a comfort following a tough breakup more recently.
Who knows, while Rob is sharing his love of pizza along this tour, maybe true love is somewhere out there seated behind a pepperoni pizza and waiting for someone tall, dark and handsome to come along and introduce her to pup cups. If so, Food Dood Feeders will be the first to know.
Alas, Rob shares the pizza passion his grandparents sewed into his genes with his sons Chase, 21, and Kyler, 19,. Rob says the boys know more about pizza than he does and are harsher pizza critics thanks to lofty standards they share.
Going forward Rob and I will score local pizza places and share the results on the 14th of each month for at least the next year. Scoring is based mostly on the excellence of the pizza (crust, cheese, sauce, toppings) but also leaves room for extraordinary experiences that may or may not have anything to do with the pizza.
Folks that know Rob, know there is a lot more to him than pizza, and we’ll learn some of those things to as we make our way from pie to pie. Finally, this Pizzabout will absolutely have room for guests. Anyone interested in joining us down the Pizzabout road should email me foodiciary@gmail.com.
On March 14, we will share details and scores from our visits to Rendezvous Pizza where chef Klaudya Barcenas took us to Pizza University, and The Wedge, which carries on despite the original location’s shuttering.
And Happy Valentine’s Day to those observing this week – eat local.