(gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] There's a sense of comfort when you walk into a place that you've known for a good part of your life.

Knowing that some things won't change.

Some things are traditional.

(gentle upbeat music) (customers talking and laughing) - [Maureen] You could have your regular round mall pizza, your Old Forge, and then there's Cebula's.

Either you love it or you hate it.

My grandmother went to the World's Fair in New York, and she saw them making pizza, and she said, I could do that.

So she came back, she made her own dough, she made her own sauce, and she got a different cheese.

And she said, well, I'm gonna do it square, 'cause I don't have round pans.

I have cookie sheets.

So I'm gonna make it in a cookie sheet.

So that's how it all started with the pizza, and that took off.

Here, this was my job right here, to bake.

I was here all the time.

My two sisters were helping.

My mother's two sisters worked here too.

They were here for 40 years, one stayed till she was 93.

So it was really a family thing.

And then the next generation came and when it was for them to take over, they didn't wanna do it.

So I said, well I'm 65, time to go for me.

You know, I'm tired.

But it wasn't easy giving it up.

It was a big decision.

- [Jeff] I think Frank, verbatim said, what if I never have Cebula's ever again?

- [Frank] Yeah.

- [Jeff] (laughs) You know, when he saw that For Sale listing, I was like, oh, I bet there's a lot of people that feel the same way.

- [Frank] (sighs) I didn't wanna see it change.

Didn't wanna see it fall into the wrong hands.

- People are used to the same thing.

That's what they wanted.

That's all they, and when I was selling, they're not gonna change anything, are they?

They're not gonna change?

I go, no, no, no.

I'm gonna teach 'em as best as I could.

I'm gonna teach 'em everything.

Don't worry.

- You don't think of pizza, you think of Cebula's as if it's like its own separate food category.

- It's homemade dough, lots of cheese, not much sauce.

And it has a very, very unique taste.

- [Jeff] I think Cebula's has always been known as the most consistently, inconsistent pizza because it is all hand done, hand rolled, handmade- - Every, every single solitary tray rolled by hand.

You could get one that's a little bit cheesier, or one that's a little bit saucier, or one that's a little bit thinner than the others, or one that's a little bit fluffier than the others.

It always tastes the same, but it's always different.

Hello?

- [Kathy] Hi.

- What's the name?

- [Kathy] Kathy.

- Kathy.

The one thing that people definitely don't realize about this place is that we don't have toppings on our pizza because like on an average Friday night, we just bake pizza all day.

(phone rings) Cebula's.

Yeah, gimme like 15, 20 minutes.

And when you call, you get the next available tray coming out of the oven.

But yeah, so many different ways to get it, but light, dark, light and fluffy, brown and bubbly.

But there's two people in this world that can make the pizza because everything's a secret recipe.

It's not even written down anywhere.

That's probably the worst part.

(laughs) People that work, they know some things, but they don't know everything.

They don't know what's in the sauce.

They don't know exactly what's in the dough.

Be surprised all the stuff that I've heard people say is actually in this dough.

The most obvious one is that it's potato dough.

Heard sour cream, cream cheese.

Heard that we actually have shells delivered and we don't actually make the dough.

I love the mystery that people don't know.

- Will be right back with your change.

- [Jeff] When we bought the place, we wanted to make sure that the staff stayed because the staff is- - [Frank] One of the reasons why people come.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- [Frank] For sure.

- [Jeff] They help keep the place the same.

(customers cheering) - I didn't buy Cebula's to change it.

- Right.

- [Customer 1] That's the best part.

- [Customer 2] Everybody knows it, everybody likes it.

- [Customer 3] That it's not changing.

That's the best part.

You're right.

It is the best part because it's kind of like a family and it is.

Everybody knows everybody.

It's kind of like Cheers.

- Some of us work together, most of us are teachers.

- Went to high school together, we've been friends for 40 years.

- That's why it's an institution.

Everyone grew up at this place, from when we were 21 of course, not younger than that.

(laughs) - [Maureen] You don't change a good thing, remember that!

(laughs) It was a good thing that we were doing, so don't change it.

(gentle upbeat music)