Article: Gourmet Pizza Shoppe is a Redlands tradition

My children always laugh when I tell them that I remember when pizza first came to the small town on Long Island where I grew up. Now I'm not claiming that this tasty memory from the late 1950s indicates when pizza first arrived in the States, just in my little corner of the world.

I remember the oddity of eating this bready substance slathered with tangy tomato sauce and lots of cheese. The only toppings I can remember were pepperoni and sausage, but mostly we were purists in New York, where a cheese pizza was the epitome of fine Italian dining. Gino's Pizzeria came to provide not only a staple food of my high school years but a place to hang out with my friends as well (the Italian ices ...