Pizzeria truly a family business

PALMER — Sometimes the weather affects even the pizza parlor.

“Everybody’s out fishing and camping,” Roselle Calugay said on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

With people out and about, fewer are at home looking to order food.

But, she said, with a month under her belt owning and operating Tuscana Pizza with her husband Cecilio Calugay, she said things are going well. She’s had a lot of repeat customers and word has been spreading.

Tuscana Pizza has been open since May 17. Roselle said she and her family decided to get into the pizza business because, well, they’ve kind of always been in the pizza business.

Cecilio has made pizza in Seattle and in Anchorage for at least 17 years. Roselle’s sister owns two pizza places in Anchorage — Milano’s and Sparta. But, like a lot of people who transplant from Anchorage to the Valley, after eight years the commute started to wear on Cecilio.

“He was tired of commuting,” Roselle said.

So they decided to open up shop. Roselle still works in Anchorage for Alaska Option, the debit card wing of AlaskaUSA Federal Credit Union.

Cecilio has their teenage son, Michael, to help out during the day when school’s not in session and Roselle comes in after work. It’s a lot of hours, Roselle said, but so far it’s working out.

The Valley is, to say the least, a crowded pizza market. But Tuscana is a few minutes’ drive from the nearest other parlor.

Roselle said that wasn’t actually by design. Cecilio had looked at a different stop, but the landlord wanted a lot more money and it wasn’t as visible a spot as the one on Creste Foris and Wasilla-Fishhook Road that they settled on.

“There’s lots of traffic here,” she said. “And it’s accessible.”

What sets them apart, she said, is quality. The ingredients are fresh every day. To keep costs down, Tuscana isn’t dine-in, and no delivery — not yet anyway. To take on delivery, she’d have to cut costs somewhere else to pay the drivers.

“Our price is already low and I don’t want to compromise the quality of it,” she said.

Cecilio chimed in here.

“My product — I can’t just sell it for $5,” he said.

He takes pride in making a good pie, he said, but when he’s at home, usually he eats what he has since he was growing up in the Philippines — rice. Roselle said she doesn’t eat a lot of pizza either, but their son, Michael, is — like any teenager — a pizza guy.

The place offers pizza of all kinds — chicken pizza, vegetarian, Greek, Alfredo. The menu also contains calzones and subs made on pizza dough baked while you wait.

Asked if she has a favorite item, she said she likes them all.

“If I want something I just make it up for myself,” she said.

Tuscana is open 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. during the week and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Sundays it’s open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. You can find them on Facebook, but not elsewhere. Not yet anyway.

“I’m still trying to figure out how to get on Urban Spoon,” Roselle said.

Contact Tuscana Pizza at 376-8699 or find them on Facebook for more information.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.