I lived here (in Cranbury, NJ) for about a year when I was around thirteen years old, but grew up in Hightstown so it was close by. It’s more diverse now than it was back then. While it still has the farmer’s community, back then it really was just the farmer’s community.
I remember Cranbury school was small. I mean there were two classes, and the class size was about 18 to 20 kids, that was literally the whole seventh grade! The communities changed but it’s still the same… it still feels similar with a little bit more of a modern twist!
I’m not that old but I wish I’d kept up more with modern times. Everything is at your fingertips, so learn as much as you can.
When I was an adult I still worked in a pizzeria business but I only did it part time, and as I felt I got to a crossroad in my thirties I decided to open my own place. I was working so much and so hard, I wanted to do that for myself. This is what I knew a lot about so for me it was like… let’s do this! This is how I got into owning a pizzeria and being here.
The amount of hours you put in especially in the beginning sure makes your head go round. There were some lows like when we had a fire back in 2020. So when that happened, during the pandemic we had to build this one. I had to find a new place and it was like starting all over again. Coming here everyday and building it. It took about nine months to reopen. The first six months we were open I worked everyday except the day my daughter graduated from college, I took that day off. The amount of hours and time… Sheesh!
We make everything ourselves so we don’t buy frozen stuff. We make our own cheese, our own dough, our own meatballs, and our own soups so that’s a lot of prep work. You’re here at 8:30 in the morning and you leave at like 10:30 at night, it’s a lot of hours. Those are some of the hardships. You end up missing out on things with your family.
I say it’s the Cranbury pizza family that keeps us all going. We’re not all obviously family but a lot of us are related, like there’s two sets of brothers that work here. And then there’s other extended family. There are friends of friends. Or friends that have been friends for thirty years!
Mr. Robert Huegel
Most of the staff (other than waitresses) that work here on average have worked for about eighteen years. In today’s world people move on and change their jobs quite often so it’s been a long time. We always say it’s something to say about the ownership, the staff that work here and the community.
For example, Darrio is the cook and he is one of the three co-owners here. He was a close friend of Joe Miller, the third owner alongside us. Darrio and Joe worked at another pizzeria together, that’s how they met, I wanna say about thirty years ago.
Darrio came to work here for us and then we asked Darrio if he wanted to become a partner and then he became a partner in the business. So I’ve known Darrio for twenty-three years. It’s probably longer, let’s say twenty-five years. Time goes by fast! When Darrio came to this country I was one of the people who helped sponsor him and his family to come here.
Like I said we are all not family but we are all like a family.