(soft music) - [Joe] In northeast PA, there are so many subcategories of pizza.

I think it's almost like a religious thing in this area, or in Old Forge anyway.

Our pizza, starting from crust up, you have a light airy dough that's crispy on the outside, with a very flavorful sauce.

- [Customer 1] Here, I like the red a lot.

It's got a nice underneath taste to it.

They got really good fresh dough.

The sauce is good.

The service is always good.

- [Customer 2] I think it's the closest one I've had to Ghigiarelli's and I always love theirs.

I think it's a wonderful pizza.

- [Mary Lou] I was laid off from a job, and my son asked me if I would start a pizza business.

I made pizza at Bruticos for 20 years.

I grew up with my mother making pizza from scratch.

But I didn't know how to run a business.

So when we opened up, it got so busy, and we were overwhelmed.

Through the years, my children, their spouses, my grandchildren who would make boxes, who would answer the phone, everybody's been here at one time or another.

There's so many memories.

(nostalgic music) - [Joe] The first time Mary Lou brought me and my sister in here, and we were stomping on the floor because of how dusty it was, I think that's literally my first memory of this place.

Maybe I was six or seven.

I didn't realize what it was gonna be, or what it was gonna be to me anyway.

I mean, the floor is now where I make pasta like three times a week.

- [Mary Lou] My grandson, Joe, he's been with me since he's young.

- [Joe] I've been helping my grandmother out since I was 12.

I'd come on a Saturday for like three hours just to make boxes.

Some point in time that turned into I would fill in if somebody on a Friday called off.

Now look at me.

(chuckles) - [Mary Lou] Oh my God.

If Joe didn't come in, it probably wouldn't go on.

(light upbeat music) - [Joe] I enjoy myself when I'm here.

I get to talk to my grandmother, get to meet customers.

- [Mary Lou] It's only really me and Joe during the weeks.

Yeah, he has mostly everything done before I get here.

We just work together.

It works out good.

It's like your a grandmother, and then you're a boss, but we're both bosses.

No, we get along great.

- [Joe] I think what makes our pizza special is that there's only two people making the pizza here, and you're getting pizza from the two people that put everything into it.

We get here early to make sure it's ready to go by 11 o'clock in the morning.

The pizza, the quality of pizza, the love you put into the pizza outweighs the business side of it.

- [Mary Lou] We wanna make sure that the first tray that goes out is the same as the last tray, and Joe does a real good job.

And now he makes his own dough, so it's even better.

- [Joe] Once I made the dough recipe, and I realized that I should really be the only person to have this thing 'cause this is, this thing makes us different from everywhere else, I thought, well, her sauce recipe probably shouldn't be on paper either.

So that is tucked away, locked away.

And she was like, "I could give the recipe to anyone, but it's never gonna taste the same way that we do it."

And then she made sure to point out that when I season the sauce, it tastes completely different than when she seasons the sauce.

(Mary Lou laughs) I mean, she's not wrong, but I don't think any recipe, secret recipe should be written down ever.

(chuckles) The last four years was probably the worst for a small business.

But during COVID, I started selling dough and pizza shells to other local bars, as well as ShopRite.

The community is very generous.

I mean, they kept us afloat.

- [Mary Lou] There's so many pizza places here, but everyone gets along.

There's no competition.

If you need something, and you call them up, they will help you out.

My cheese machine broke, and I went up to our Arcaro and Genell, and Angelo and Mark were there.

And I had my cheese and I had buckets.

Mark came right out to the car, took them in, grated it for me and put them back in.

That's how the town is though.

That's being blessed.