By Wesley Harris
Today, pizza is so common that it is difficult to imagine a time when many Americans had never tasted it. But when Ruston restaurants began serving pizza in the 1950s, the Italian dish was still relatively new to much of the country.
Long familiar in Italian immigrant communities, pizza spread rapidly after World War II as American servicemen returned from Italy with a taste for it. By the 1950s, it was becoming a national food. Shakey’s opened in California in 1954, Pizza Hut in Kansas in 1958, Little Caesars in Michigan in 1959 and Domino’s in 1960.
Ruston joined the trend early.
On March 12, 1957, the College Cafe at 818 West California Avenue placed a newspaper ad announcing, “NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN RUSTON — REAL ITALIAN HOT PIZZA PIE.”
The pizzas, available to eat there or take home, came with anchovies, sausage, mushrooms and mozzarella cheese and sold for 75 cents and $1.
Was it Ruston’s first pizza? The College Cafe certainly claimed it was, and so far, the historical record has offered no reason to dispute the boast.
Pizza did not remain a novelty for long.
No later than 1958, the Dawg House, a popular gathering place for Ruston’s teenagers and college students, was serving pizza. A 1959 advertisement offered seven kinds of “Hot Italian Pizza” alongside hamburgers, barbecue, chili dogs, sandwiches and homemade pies. By 1960, another ad called directly to “PIZZA FANS.”
By 1959, pizza had made the leap from restaurant menu to grocery list. Piggly Wiggly advertised “sliced pizza meat” for Ruston shoppers making their own pies at home.
Pizza had arrived.
The pizza parlor
Ruston had pizza, but it did not yet have a true pizza parlor. That changed in 1965, when Louisiana Tech student Dominic Cordaro and cousin Sam Marabella opened Cushino’s Pizza Parlor at 514 W. Arizona Avenue. Cordaro later became a prominent Shreveport restaurateur, but his restaurant career began while attending Tech.
Former customers remember Cushino’s (Italian for cousins) as Ruston’s classic pizza parlor, with an atmosphere distinctly different from the College Cafe and Dawg House, where pizza was only part of a broader menu. Just half a block from campus, Cushino’s became a popular Tech student gathering place for about a decade.
While Cushino’s served Tech students, another North Louisiana pizza story began about 30 miles east.
Johnny Huntsman, a 1957 West Monroe High School graduate, encountered pizza while playing football at Graceland University in Iowa and working in a pizza restaurant. He was fond of saying, “The first pizza I saw, I ate it.” After returning to Louisiana, he taught and coached before entering the restaurant business.
In 1967, Huntsman borrowed money and opened the first Johnny’s Pizza House at 3812 DeSiard Street in Monroe. The restaurant occupied a converted washateria with only three parking spaces and stood across from Northeast Louisiana State College, later Northeast Louisiana University and now the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
Huntsman jokingly promoted it as “the only link in the world’s smallest pizza chain.”
It would not stay that way for long. Huntsman proved to be an energetic promoter, and Johnny’s expanded rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s. His flair for publicity became especially apparent when the company later encountered financial trouble. In 1989, Huntsman stood at a busy West Monroe intersection wearing a barrel held up by suspenders and carrying a sign pleading, “Please Eat Johnny’s Pizza.” The stunt attracted television coverage and helped bring customers back.
Pizza Q comes to town
In the summer of 1969, an unusual sight began taking shape along U.S. 80. Louisiana’s first Pizza Q, an eight-sided building unlike much else in Ruston, rose front and center in the new Village Plaza Shopping Center.
Pizza Q opened in September at 303 W. California Avenue under manager Hoyt Haynie. An advertisement promised pizzas made fresh from “famous Greek recipes” and offered more than 14 varieties.
A newspaper feature later that month took readers behind the counter. Pizza Q made its dough from scratch and blended its sauces in the restaurant. Its tomato sauce was described as Greek, its sausage was specially prepared, and pizzas were baked at temperatures ranging from 550 to 700 degrees.
Prices started at 85 cents for a small plain pizza and reached $3.55 for the largest pizza loaded with toppings.
The restaurant itself reflected the era. The exterior was blue and white, while the interior featured shades of blue, a modified cathedral ceiling paneled in knotty pine, red tweed carpeting and tinted glass.
By 1974, Pizza Q had become “THE PIZZA KING — Formerly The Pizza Q.” It offered 50-cent delivery and a drive-up package window selling beer, wine, whiskey and bourbon.
Johnny’s and Shakey’s arrive
By the middle of the 1970s, Ruston’s pizza business was entering another phase.
In December 1975, Sam Marabella placed a newspaper notice thanking Ruston and Louisiana Tech students for supporting Cushino’s for approximately nine years and wishing good luck to its new occupant, Johnny’s Pizza House.
Eight years after Huntsman opened across from the college campus in Monroe, Johnny’s had reached another North Louisiana college town, taking over an established pizza parlor just off the Tech campus.
There was a fitting connection between the two locations. Huntsman’s first Johnny’s had grown by serving a college community in Monroe. The first Ruston Johnny’s moved into an established pizza parlor that had spent nearly a decade serving Louisiana Tech students.
At nearly the same time, another pizza parlor appeared in a very different part of town.
Founded in Sacramento, California, in 1954, Shakey’s was among the early chains that spread the pizza parlor concept nationally. Its Ruston location also reflected the city’s changing commercial geography: Unlike the earlier pizza businesses around West California Avenue and Louisiana Tech, Shakey’s opened in 1975 beside Louisiana’s first Walmart store on the South I-20 Service Road.
By then, no one needed to explain to Ruston what a pizza was.
From novelty to institution
Other pizza restaurants and national chains followed over the ensuing decades. Pizza Inn, Pizza Hut, Fox’s Pizza Den, Domino’s, Little Caesars, Papa John’s, Rotolo’s and others became part of Ruston’s pizza landscape. Some lasted for years, while others came and went.
Johnny’s endured
What began with a tiny Monroe restaurant across from a college campus grew into a North Louisiana institution. The Ruston restaurant that replaced Cushino’s in 1975 became part of that expansion, and Johnny’s continues to operate two locations in the city today.
Ruston has also seen another turn in its pizza history. Utility Brewing Company brought locally made, wood-fired pizza and craft beer to downtown, a modern variation on the old idea of gathering around a freshly made pizza.
The changes since 1957 have been considerable.
That year, the College Cafe thought pizza was unfamiliar enough to advertise “real Italian hot pizza pie” and proclaim it a first for Ruston.
A year later, young people could eat pizza at the Dawg House. By 1959, Piggly Wiggly was selling pizza ingredients for home cooks. In 1965, Cushino’s gave Tech students a classic pizza parlor just off campus. Pizza Q followed in 1969. In 1975, Johnny’s took over Cushino’s while Shakey’s opened beside Walmart.
By 1975, Ruston no longer needed an advertisement explaining pizza — only one telling people where to get it.
The restaurants and locations have changed, but pizza has remained part of the diet — and the memories — of generations of Ruston residents and Louisiana Tech and Grambling students.
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