Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190015
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The year was 1965, the place Williamson Road. Roanoke's premiere pizza didn't just come in a cardboard box, it came in a box lined with page upon page of the Roanoke Times - to keep the grease from seeping onto your car seat.
It wasn't Pizza Hut (this pizza is always cut into squares).
It wasn't Domino's (this pizza is so heavy, it takes two hands just to lift it).
What pizza was it?
Whitney Copperman wasn't even alive yet in 1965, but she knows the answer - from the secret-recipe crust to the decades-old Vulcan gas brick oven that has always cooked it to crispy perfection:
Davis Pizza.
Copperman, 26, also knows it isn't a Davis Pizza until it's been cut into squares the right way: with the worn wood-handled machete, leaving four tiny triangles in the corners that the person picking up the pizza can safely munch on the way home. . . without the family noticing they're gone.
Copperman, a 1986 Patrick Henry High School graduate, can spot Davis Pizza regulars just from what they say on the telephone. She knows that people who cut their teeth on Davis' thin crust don't say ``large'' when they want a 14-inch pizza; they order a ``family
size.''
``It's exactly the same; it's still greasy,'' promises Copperman, who adds that Davis Pizza "is not exactly what I would choose'' because of her sensitive stomach.
But since she took over the legendary pizza joint from Flora and Cleo Davis last November, she's learned not to niggle over the nature of the beast.
Dick Roark, a Davis devotee for decades, explains why: ``It's just something you don't mess with. It's a delicacy.
``When my wife was pregnant, she had to have it at least twice a week.''
And then there was the lure of the ``old ladies'' who worked the joint. Copperman can't count how many times regulars have ambled inside - and then done an angry double-take.
``It's always, `Where are the old ladies?','' she says. ``They're upset that maybe the pizza will be different without them.''
Rest assured, grease gourmands: Davis Pizza is still Davis Pizza. Copperman saw to that when her father, Williamson Road Pancake House owner Lance Copperman, handled the ticklish negotiations of buying the neighboring Davis business for his daughter.
``Mrs. Davis' daughter came down from Columbus, Ohio, every six weeks to make the dough - 50 pounds at a time,'' Whitney Copperman explains. ``So I came in and watched her and wrote it all down. I had one chance and one chance only.
``And it's all hands and splashes'' for the recipe, she says. ``It's not measured at all.''
Ditto for the sauce recipe, which Mrs. Davis demonstrated for her - once. As well as the overall Davis technique: The toppings are bunched on every piece; the meat is applied raw and cooked right along with the dough and sauce (thus, the requisite enhancement of grease).
Copperman's goal is to re-popularize Davis Pizza, to restore it to its heyday. She's gained 10 pounds since taking over - which was motive enough to create an alternative ``hand-tossed'' version with fewer calories and a cheaper price tag. (A family-size Davis, with the works, costs $24.60.; a large hand-tossed is $6.99, plus $1 per topping.)
She's also introduced to the menu pasta salad ($2.25) and antipasto salad ($3.25), homemade spaghetti with Italian meatballs and garlic bread ($3.99), and 8-inch submarine sandwiches ($3.95).
The spartan Davis decor of days past has been given a facelift of sorts. Copperman has added a radio, TV and Coke machine.
And the couple of black plastic chairs that customers used to sit on while waiting on orders has been expanded to table-seating for 10, complete with seasonal flower arrangements: dandelions.
``It's a unique situation that I compete with my daughter,'' says Whitney's dad and pancake perfectionist Lance Copperman. ``Yesterday someone came in to the pancake house and got three orders of my onion rings'' after buying four of her subs next door.
(His vanity license tag, incidentally, reads PANCAKE. ``I was BUTTER for a while, but I couldn't deal with it,'' Whitney says.)
While Whitney insists on maintaining the integrity of the original Davis Pizza, she is trying to update the business. A cash register replaced the old drawer system the Davises always used.
It's still a far cry from, say, Papa John's Pizza, where a computer keeps your phone number and past orders on record (a scary thought). But Copperman doesn't want to stray too far from the original Davis Pizza mystique.
Like Mrs. Davis and the old ladies, she refuses to divulge the secret dough recipe. And no, she won't comment on the rumor that the key crust ingredient is beer.
There is one thing, however, that her young hands just can't seem to master.``I draw the line at taking the pizzas out of the oven.
``I have to use an oven mit,'' she says. ``The old ladies just used a kitchen rag. They were tough.''
The new Davis Pizza, at 2406 Williamson Road N.E., is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday, 3 p.m. to midnight Saturday, 3 to 9 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday. 366-5025.
Conspicuous Consumption is an occasional dining-out series spotlighting the way Southwest Virginians eat, drink and cook.
by CNB