Pizza bigger than your face
June 29, 2016
1.16 feet long. Two paper plates.
That’s the size of just one slice of Benny Sorrentino’s Pizza in Harrisonburg, Virginia. General manager, Jon Durham, along with coworkers, makes the abnormally sized pizza fresh everyday. They even hand toss the dough.
“The size of the pizza is a novelty item to get the people interested in it. A huge slice of pizza gets people talking. We use it as marketing. We actually make everything in house so the quality of it is excellent,” Durham said.
Along with the dough, Durham and the other employees make the sauce in house and their own specific cheese blend.
“The most popular pizza we have here is our buffalo chicken,” Durham said, “We have a very limited menu, with one meat monthly special and one vegetable monthly special. We always have sriracha sausage, pepperoni, cheese and sliced sausage pizza.”
The pizza served at Benny’s is a combination of different styles.
“We call [our pizza] the Virginia slice, but it’s a mixture of New York style, New Jersey and our own little twist,” Durham said.
John Fairclough and John Durham making giant pizzas at Benny’s Pizza in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
The Virginia slice all started with a man named Benny.
“Benny first made the pizza. He started it all and then we just go with different Italian names for the second part of the name. Some of them have a specific meaning others don’t. Sorrentino’s was completely random,” Durham said.
Being located in a college town Benny Sorrentino’s sees JMU students as most of its business when it’s in session.
“We have a very good mix. When JMU is in town, they’re 80 percent of our business on the weekends, but we do have quite a lot of local followings and when JMU is out of town more of the locals are willing to come downtown and try the pizza,” Durham said.
Benny’s Pizza has many locations up and down the East Coast, many of which are located in college towns just like Benny Sorrentino’s.
“It turns out any type of happening in downtown areas are in college towns. You stay up until 3 a.m., some nights so the
Photos of customers enjoying their gigantic pizzas are on display on the side of the booths.
college atmosphere a big part of our business.”
Customer Ashley Kreib said she enjoys eating at Benny Sorrentino’s because it reminds her of eating at the Benny’s Pizza in Blacksburg when she went to college at Virginia Tech.
“At Tech, my entire group of friends would get a whole pizza. My friend had a truck, so we just put it in the back of his truck and took it to go.”
On its Twitter account, Benny’s advertises its continual pizza eating contest.
“The challenge is you have an hour to eat a whole 28” pizza. Competitive eaters have 15 minutes to try and eat the whole thing. The prize is $500,” Durham said. You can take part in this competition in any of the Benny restaurants.
The Benny’s challenge is here! Eat an 8 lb, 28″ inch cheese pizza with sausage and pepperoni and walk (or roll) out with $500!
— Benny Sorrentino’s (@BennysHBURG) June 27, 2016
Benny Sorrentino’s employee John Faircloth witnessed a failed attempt at the pizza contest.
“One guy tried the challenge here once, he didn’t even get close. He ate not even half the pizza and he was struggling the whole time. He had around 20 friends who were cheering him on, and we were all watching too, because it was the first challenge that had happened here before. Around 30 minutes in, he just stopped eating and gave up,” Faircloth said.
Durham believes that the pizza is difficult to make along with being difficult to eat.
“It’s a lot more difficult [to make] than regular pizza. We’re dealing with 28” of dough at a time. Three slices of our pizza is your typical large pizza.” Durham said.
Because the pizza is so large, people often have a hard time taking it home.
“We’ve had everything, from putting them on the roof of their Mini Cooper to stacking the boxes straight up and down in the back of their car. You name it, it’s happened,” Durham said.
A photo posted by Molly McCarvill (@mollyerinphotography) on
Harrisonburg residents Michael Davis and his daughter Emme come regularly to eat at Benny Sorrentino’s.
“I like the atmosphere and we can walk here which is really nice,” Davis said. “It’s nice and laid back. You can write with chalk on the wall, and [Emme] likes looking at all the pictures of the people eating the giant pieces of pizza on the wall.”
Davis said he enjoys the pizza at Benny’s even though the large size can be overwhelming at times.
“We have to make sure our van is cleaned out before we pick it up because we can’t get it into the side car door, so we have to put it in through the back,” Davis said. “Whenever we have friends in town we buy the whole pizza so we can see the look on their faces.”
Durham said one of his favorite parts of working at Benny’s is seeing people’s facial expressions.
“No matter what age people are, you could have a 60-year-old lady come in and she’ll smile and laugh the same as a kid does when they see the size of our pizza,” Durham said.
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