 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 Adam Ritchie and his band inside the DMZSteve Schmidt and Link Smith skating in DMZ parking lotSteve Schmidt, somewhere between the heights and downtownGrove Circle Punx - Andy Conrad, Utrillo, Bryan Spinas, Matthew Thompson, Jason White, Josh Bentley (92)
 added story to The Link Springs Forms Event The Link Springs Forms added story to New Wave Festival added story to DMZ opens added story to DMZ opens added story to New Wave Festival added story to Econochrist forms added story to Hatful Day plays their first show added story to Big Boss Line forms added story to Women's City Club Show  |
  Jen Shaw // Stacey Mackey was my in..-working The Cafe the summer of my senior year '94 and she introduced me to richard h.. who has a penchant for hiring high school girls..and was sooo impressed by my mcdonalds reference.. that naturally I got the position of Bus-Girl.. as I grew older and "aged out".. into my early twenties.. ..was sent back into the un-airconditioned recesses of the kitchen..slaving over buckets of "house" and trays upon trays of "sammies" and honeyed mustard..I fell in love with the showcase showdown at rebsamen..I saw shug's fall, I have burns on my forearms still... and I don't care who "claims" the title.. I am hands down, -THE BEST PLIERS TWIRLER IN THE WORLD.. ever. // Pizza Cafe's kitchen is what I'd imagine the lower decks of a pirate ship being like, only with more potential health code violations. It was a tiny little room with a huge oven and no A/C filled with sweaty punk rockers. Washing dishes was a treacherous proposition, since there were about 3 feet between the dish sink and the oven. I don't think I washed my work shirts the entire summer I was there - I'd just toss them in the back of my car to bake in the sun until my next shift. I think they came close to getting up and crawling around a few times. You'd think this would've stuck out with the kitchen crew, but nah. Fiona Patterson // Dude.
I was hired by Richard Harrison, owner of the Pizza Cafe, in the parking lot of Circle K. It was spring of 1997 and Everyone Asked About You (I think) was planning to go on tour and every member was a Pizza Cafe employee. Naturally I jumped at the chance to help out and get paid $6 an hour to work in the tiniest kitchen known to man. The dough machine was a donkey. The ovens were the spawn of Satan. Sexual Harassment by the management was a given. Ranch dressing was all over the place. If you were scheduled to work on a Friday or Saturday night it didn't bother you because not only were you getting paid to hang out with your friends, you could rest assured that 8 of your other friends would stop in to say 'hi' or try to get free food. When business was slow, you passed the time making prank calls, sabotaging your co-workers beverage with Ranch, or by trying to put pepperonis in your vegetarian co-worker's coat pockets. To this day, a trip home to Little Rock is not complete without drinking a beer with Richard, the dysfunctional father you never had. Clay Simmons // Ah, the Pizza Cafe. Working here was some kind of right of passage for many people involved in the LR scene. At one time, all four members of Shake Ray Turbine were employed by the Pizza Cafe. If we had a show, it was a huge pain in the ass for everyone to get off work for the night, but the management usually seemed to find a way. They must enjoy hiring flaky rock and roll types because, to my knowledge, the practice continues to this day. One of the more memorable aspects of working there in the summer without air-conditioning was enduring the unreal temperatures in the kitchen. Cramming 3 to 4 people and a 500 degree double-decker pizza oven into a 50sqft space literally pushed the mercury into the 120/130 degree range. Fuck. The Cafe's bottomless reserve of beer, pizza, turkey sandwiches, buckets of "RAY-ANCH," and, eventually, smoked chicken wings probably contributed significantly to the "bloatization" of many a LR scenester. |
 |
E-Mail this to a friend
Cory Walker
Pizza Cafe
