Pizza Today - August 2015 - 60

2015

INDEPENDENT
PIZZERIA
OF THE YEAR

Vovo Allo Marina ($9) is topped with
garlic, Pecorino Romano and oregano
leaves on a San Marzano tomato sauce
base. All three are baked with a cracked
fresh egg. Weekend brunch pizzas passed
Mark's trials to become a Saturday and
Sunday draw, served from 11 a.m. to 3
p.m. alongside signature cocktails like
the Bottomless Mimosa ($10), Bloody
Mary ($3) and Marco's Mule with vodka,
ginger beer and lime ($5).
Menu mainstays drive guests into the
pizzerias. The build-to-order Margherita
is the top seller at both locations, followed
by the Brooklyn with fresh mozzarella,
sweet Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, red onion, San Marzano tomato
sauce and EVOO ($16). The Brooklyn
falls under the New York Pies category, a
menu designation that allows the pizzeria
to offer more traditional New York-style
pizza toppings. A Brooklyn native, Mark
says, you'll rarely see a pepperoni pizza in
most Neapolitan pizzerias.
6 0 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5

There's one item that can only be
ordered at the Englewood location - the
fried version of the Dolce Pizza ($10).
"First you take the dough and you stretch
it," Mark says. "Then you fry it, put the
ricotta mix and honey on it and stick it
into the oven and bake. Take it out and
finish it with toasted almonds."
As we witness a packed lunch with
a couple table turns and people still
flocking in after 1 p.m., Mark attests that
the lunch day part was a struggle in the
infancy of both locations. Now, the lunch
business has become one-third of its sales,
thanks to the introduction of a $9 smaller
pizza deal that includes a salad and a
drink. "And we still make great money
with it from a food cost standpoint."
Though pizza makes up 75 to 80
percent of Marco's food sales, other items
like the Coal-fired Lemoncello Chicken
Wings, Meatball Sliders, select pastas and
assortment of salads sell well. There are
no dogs on Marco's menu. "If there are,

they don't last long," Mark says. "I don't
put anything on there that's not selling."
Marco's Coal-Fired was one of the
early adopters of menuing a house-made,
gluten-free pizza dough. "When I make
a batch, I make it by hand," Mark says,
adding in a clean environment. "I get
about 13 to 14 dough balls out of each
batch. I remember the first week I made
it. I threw away about 6 or 7. Now I make
over a tray or two a day." He explains a
key factor in dining with someone who is
gluten free - that person typically dictates where the entire group eats. Though,
he does not recommend Marco's for
Celiac Disease suffers because the pizzeria
is not a gluten-free facility.
MARK SAYS THE PIZZERIA CONCEPT
ITSELF HASN'T CHANGED SINCE PIZZA
TODAY'S VISIT FIVE YEARS AGO. More-

over, it's the little things that have been
honed for profitability and efficiency.
Those little things encompass the best
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Pizza Today - August 2015

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