SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — The pepperonis and the mushrooms and the black olives poke through the thick melted cheese and invite me to explore their wonders.
I am glad I have ordered the D’ Pizza Joint Special with its fine smorgasbord of flavors, with not only the pepperoni and the mushrooms but also Italian sausage and onions and green peppers. This pizza is a fine way to introduce myself to D’ Pizza Joint’s extensive menu offerings of sandwiches, pastas, seafood baskets and, of course, the pizzas.
I am also glad I finally made it to D’ Pizza Joint. I have taken Lyft riders to D’ Pizza Joint on many occasions. I have also spoken with the owners in previous years for stories about Spring Break.
It is Wednesday night and before I stop at D’ Pizza Joint, I drive down the main drag. Go karts carry groups of kids with what I’ve come to call the “Spring Break look.” That “look” of Spring Breakers is easily spotted for their very movements, their energy, the way they talk and the way they dress. The “look” stands in sharp contrast to the local couples with their small children and the manner of their walking and their attire.
There is, of course, the excited scream that can only come from Spring breakers, and I look to see young college kids playing miniature golf.
Yep, definitely Spring breakers.
I am hungry now as I have not eaten since breakfast, so I pull in to D’ Pizza Joint at 2413 Padre Blvd.
I enter a place filled with personality and character and color. License plates from Colorado and Arkansas and Indiana and North Carolina are mounted on a beam across the ceiling. I sit at the bar, the long wooden bar with some sort of clear casing, and beneath that casing I see customized dollar bills with random messages.
Behind me a family is finishing up several pizzas. An employee – not sure if she’s a waitress or an owner or both – boxes up a pepperoni pizza and stacks the plates and someone says, “I’ll be back” and the kids are laughing and a man sneezes and the ceiling fans cast soft shadows.
My pizza arrives. It is a good pizza, and although it is a small pizza, the individual pieces quickly fill me so that I have stop for a while before diving into another piece.
Meanwhile the employee moves about the dining room with large tins of pizzas at one time and she carries them with the skill that can come only from long hours of practice. On the TV plays an episode of “Law and Order: SVU” and Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson speaks to a traumatized woman and I miss watching this series but I no longer have a working television.
I take another bite of pizza and then I can’t eat the last slice so I ask for the check and the small white box.
I leave D’ Pizza Joint now and I see more college kids in the go karts and along the sidewalks. I am surprised to see this much activity even before the “big” Spring Break crowd. With the chaotic state of the world, many have questioned whether the Spring Break crowds would even fill the popular hot spots.
I don’t know how this Spring Break will look this year, but I think it will be a good one.
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