Pizza-making is a piece of parlor-owner's heart
It's the hand-tossed pizza dough that makes these pies fly
By Suzanne Cristallo
Question: What does a geophysicist have in common with a pizza?
Answer: Nothing, except that Chuck Hammers liked to eat the piquant Italian pies at Blondie's Pizza in Berkeley while he studied for his degree in geophysics. He liked them so much, as did other people who ate them, that he decided to make pizzas his life's work.
Today, we have Pizza My Heart in Los Gatos. It is the fourth location 39-year-old Hammers has opened since he started the business in 1985. In town for only two months, the New York-style pizza place is on N. Santa Cruz Avenue in the spot vacated by Rock 'n' Tacos, which reportedly took its business online.
"We thought Los Gatos was a sleepy little town and we'd be able to open slowly and get a little experience [for the crews]," he reflects, noting he chooses to employ many high school students who have never held a job before. "But we were swamped with business as soon as we opened and had to bring in our Santa Cruz managers to help out."
New York-style pizza is made with hand-tossed dough, creating some difficulty for the young employees learning to do it for the first time. "We recommend they wear baseball caps to keep the flour out of their hair," Hammers jokes, "and we served lots of free oval-shaped pizzas when we first opened."
Difficult to prepare properly, the dough should be put out and allowed to warm up to 36 hours before use so that it proofs properly--that is, the dough gets bubbly, which in turn allows it to become crispy when baked. "Typical chains make [dough] the day of serving," he says.
A third of Hammers' customers are transplanted New Yorkers, he estimates. Others are high school students, local business people and moms and their kids who mainly do take-out.
"We don't have room for the ball teams here," he says, noting the 37-customer capacity he is allowed includes both indoors and out. "Before we opened, up to half of our Santa Cruz store customers were coming over the hill from Los Gatos." Besides Santa Cruz, Hammers has two Capitola locations.
The shops serve pizza-by-the-slice for $2 to $2.75. There also are 12-, 14- and 18-inch rounds for $8 to $24, depending on size and toppings.
Favorites are The Prima--tomatoes, olives and feta and parmesan cheeses; the spicy pepperoni; and the pesto, which includes roma tomatoes and red onion. Combinations include honey-roasted chicken with spinach, roma tomatoes and lots of garlic. "We serve free breath mints with it," Hammers says with a grin.
Sharing ownership with Hammers, who grew up in Salinas, is his wife, Mary Babbitt, a Channel 11 anchorwoman. They have an 18-month-old son, Cole, and another baby is due in October. They also share child care, with Hammers taking over until Babbitt returns at midnight from her late newscast.
Pizza My Heart is located at 9 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos and is open daily 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Call 408.395.8834.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
