Pizzaburger creator had many recipes for success in business

Joe Stringhill says he could write a book about his more than 40 years in the restaurant business. But the creator of the pizzaburger doesn't have the time.

"I think I'm busier now than when I was working," Stringhill, founder and owner of the popular pizzeria and restaurant that carried his surname, said while relaxing at his home in Washington Township. "People tell me I should write a book about everything that went on. Those were great years and I was blessed to be associated with so many wonderful people -- our staff, our customers."

Until he does find time to write that book, Stringhill, 69, revels in recounting a career that began in 1959 when the original Stringhill's opened at 813 Fayette Ave., Lynnwood, in a building owned by Jerry Weiss. That structure now houses the Lynnwood Lanes bowling establishment.

"Jerry had a grocery store and a record shop and also sold appliances," recalled Stringhill, a native of Lynnwood and a 1955 graduate of Rostraver High School. "My brother John and I decided to give the pizza business a shot and we were off and running."

A couple of years later, Weiss constructed another building "just across the street," Stringhill said, and the pizzeria moved to larger quarters. And that site next to Ange's Barber Shop is where custom cuisine history was made.

"That's where we invented the pizzaburger," Stringhill said of the sandwich that became a signature item on the restaurant's menu. "Anyone can make a hamburger, throw some cheese and sauce on it and call it a pizzaburger, but we created the original. You can't have a pizzaburger without pizza ingredients, including the dough, and we made the first one."

Stringhill said the pizzaburgers initially sold for 35 cents apiece, but even the ensuing increases in price didn't deter customers who wanted to savor their unique taste.

"We sold thousands of them, maybe a million, over the years," he said. "People who were traveling on Interstate 70 used to exit and come to our place for pizzaburgers. We would get letters and cards of appreciation from people all over the country thanking us for good food and great service. Many of them made a point of visiting us more than once. And I remember college kids coming home for a visit and stopping to get a pizzaburger even before they went to see their parents. They also would take them back to school because their friends loved them."

In 1965, Stringhill, who was away from the business for a couple of years while he served in the military, had the opportunity to move to nearby Allen's Crossroads in Rostraver Township at a site currently occupied by Burger King.

"Frank Camino, whose restaurant (Camino's) was located where Wendy's is now, owned property across the road (Route 201) and we went there," Stringhill said. "That's when we expanded our menu and decided to go with curb service as well as seating inside. Our carhops would come to your car, take your order and bring the food out on a tray that was attached to the door of your vehicle. People loved that."

In addition to pizza and pizzaburgers, Stringhill's also featured sandwiches, french fries, short order meals, milkshakes and soft drinks.

The Allen's Crossroads restaurant was a haven for young and old alike and has been described by Dick Polen and others who enjoyed countless evenings of cruisin' there as teenagers as "an oasis in the night."

"What a great place that was," said Polen, a Rostraver native now living in Athens, Ohio. "I lived only about two minutes away and it was just so much fun to go to Stringhill's, Camino's, the Diaper Bar and the Dog House. I can't begin to tell you how many miles I put on my dad's car driving around and around the parking lots."

Stringhill said the young people who made up the majority of his business were, for the most part, "good kids."

"I'd say 99.9 percent of them were really OK," he said. "We never had any real trouble. Friday nights, after the football games, were our only major concern. That would bring a large crowd and a lot of traffic. But my brother John and I enlisted some help from the local police and some friends and we patrolled the parking lot to keep things running smoothly. The kids respected us."

Being at that location also brought added responsibilities to the Stringhill family.

"The area across the road from us was just a big field; there were no buildings there when we started," Judy Stringhill, Joe's wife of 46 years, said of the property now commonly known as Kmart Plaza.

"Napkins, paper cups and other stuff from our parking lot would blow across the road into that field and we were responsible for keeping it clean. Alfred Little, a wonderful man from Monessen who was the caretaker at our place, was in charge of the cleanup. He had a large stick with a nail attached to one end and he made sure the field was spotless."

That field, recalled Judy Stringhill, the former Judy Swantek, remained empty until the W.C. Grant department store became the first business to open there sometime in the '60s.

Another transition took place in 1981 as Stringhill's made its final move to 1303 Fayette Ave. (at an intersection with Perry Avenue). That restaurant is now owned and operated by Chris Vaccaro, of Monessen, who bought the business from Joe Stringhill three years ago. Vaccaro's still features Stringhill's pizza as a specialty on its menu.

"We built that building ourselves," Stringhill said. "We were closed for almost a year after leaving the Allen's Crossroads site at the end of 1979. It took us a little longer than we anticipated to build the new place and we were a little concerned about getting our customers back. We didn't do any advertising in the paper when we finally reopened but it turned out that we didn't need that. Honestly, we couldn't keep up with the traffic the day we opened. People obviously heard about it and there was a steady stream of customers."

Judy Stringhill recalled that family and friends were kept busy "literally non-stop" making pizzas and folding pizza boxes to keep up with the orders.

One advertising campaign that did work created another hectic day years later.

"We came up with this idea to keep the place in our customers' minds while we closed for our annual summer vacation in July 1988," Stringhill recalled.

He ran a one-inch by one-column newspaper ad 30 times in July and advised customers that if they collected all 30 ads and brought them to the restaurant when it re-opened in August, he would give them a free large pizza.

"What we did was run an 'S' one day, 'T' the next and so on to spell out our name," Stringhill said. "I thought a hundred or so people might respond but never expected the overwhelming results."

A total of 520 persons and/or groups accepted the challenge to collect the coupons and earn a free pizza. That, Stringhill said, amounted to 15,600 coupons. He told reporter Emma Jene Lelik in an Aug. 24, 1988 story in The Valley Independent that stacked one atop the other 520 high, the free pizzas would be as high as "a six-story building or certainly close to it."

"I was very happy about it," Stringhill told Lelik of the response. "One lady told me about the block party they had to collect coupons and that they were going to have a similar one to share the pizzas."

While Stringhill was "very happy" to give away more than 500 free pizzas, his employees had "quite a job on their hands," especially because he insisted on the same quality for the giveaways as the homemade pizza, made fresh daily.

Stringhill's mother, Genevieve (Jennie) Stringhill, and his sister, Flora Stringhill, made pizza dough and shells "all day long," he said.

"Can you imagine them working over a pizza oven all day in August?" he asked.

Stringhill's menu expanded again to include spaghetti, gnocchi, ravioli and other Italian specialties, a variety of sandwiches that complemented the pizzaburgers, a number of other "meat and potatoes" dishes, soup, and desserts, "all homemade," Stringhill emphasized. In addition to the spacious seating area inside, the restaurant also had a drive-in widow for takeout orders.

Home cooking and a family atmosphere were trademarks of Stringhill's.

"We always wanted people to feel like they were part of their family, that our place was their home away from home," Stringhill said. "We had steady customers, people who were faithful to us for many years.

And we had good service from people who worked for us. They were loyal people who made our philosophy for good business work well."

Stringhill was the restaurant's unofficial maitre d', a role he relished, said his wife.

"Joe has always had a gift of gab," Judy Stringhill said. "He simply loved talking to people when they came to the restaurant and they enjoyed talking with him. It was a mutual admiration society."

That praise notwithstanding, Stringhill is quick to credit his wife and other family members who worked at the restaurant.

"My brother John was with me from day one and stayed until the end," he said. "And my mother was with us every day we were open until she retired. It was truly a family business."

Stringhill's mother and sister prepared the pizza shells and were "very particular" about the process.

"My mother insisted that our pizza have a thick crust and that everything was made fresh daily," he said. "She and Flora would mix the dough and let it rise before shaping it into one-pound balls. Then they would let it rise again before being shaped into the square pies we sold and placed in the pans. The sauce and cheese had to be just right, too. There was a lot of work involved but it had to be just right. My mother said the customers deserved nothing less."

Flora Stringhill continues working today for the new owner, Chris Vaccaro, in perpetuating the Stringhill business name and legacy of quality.

Complementing the family atmosphere over the years were Joe and Judy's children -- son Joe Stringhill, of Belle Vernon, and daughters Jodi Monack and her husband Frank, of Washington Township, and Jackie Nicholson, of Fruitland Park, Fla. -- and Judy's mother, Julia Swantek.

Family is very much a part of Stringhill's life three years removed from the grind of running a business.

"Every day is family day here," he said, chomping on a cigar and waving his hand to point to the garden filled with fresh vegetables, a grape arbor and trees filled with apples, pears and plums. "The whole family comes here for Sunday dinner -- homemade noodles, ravioli, gnocchi, roast. That's how I grew up, with the family together for Sunday dinner."

All of the food for those present-day feasts is prepared in a spacious garage behind Stringhill's home. It is replete with a stove, refrigerator and oven and serves as a storage area for the zucchini, Italian pole beans, tomatoes, peppers and other fresh vegetables Stringhill nurtures in his garden.

"It's my getaway," Stringhill smiled. "Judy and I love to do the cooking here."

Judy Stringhill supressed a chuckle with that statement, noting that her husband does an "excellent job of being in charge. That's the way it was at the restaurant and things haven't changed."

When he's not busy with those tasks at home, Stringhill remains active in his 20th year on the Belle Vernon Area School Board, delivering Meals On Wheels and being a longtime member of the Fayette City-Washington Township Lions Club. He and Judy also enjoy camping.

And then there are the grandchildren -- Madison Monack, 3; Logan Monack, 8; Caitlin Nicholson, 9; Haley Stringhill, 15, and Courtney Chester, 18. They are, Stringhill said fondly, "the joy of my life."

Courtney is a senior at Belle Vernon Area High School and Stringhill, as a member of the school board, is looking forward to presenting her with her diploma at graduation next spring.

"I've said many times that I wanted to do that," he said. "That will be a special moment for me. Every minute I spend with my grandchildren is special to me."

Just as was all that time he toiled in the restaurant business.

"I'll be honest with you, I don't miss the long hours, going from 6 a.m. to 2 o'clock the next morning," Stringhill said. "I was very fortunate to have enjoyed success in business, but we worked hard for it. But I do miss the people, our customers. I can still hear someone coming in the door, taking some of the free popcorn we had as an appetizer and saying, 'Hey, Joe, where's the fried dough?' That was another specialty the people loved. When we were really busy, the customers would get the fried dough themselves. People still talk about it today.

"It was fun being with them. God blessed us and I have more memories than any man could ask for."

Enough, perhaps, to write a book -- if only he could find the time.