Barnaby’s Pizza
We eat pizza from time to time. Who doesn’t? For us, it’s usually Voccelli’s, which is just a stone’s throw from our house. But we have the fondest memories of Barnaby’s, a pizzeria once located on Greenbrier Drive at the current site of Guadalajara.
Pizza was a relatively new concept in the south in the 1960s. New York and Chicago were well known for pizza pies, an Italian staple, but not so much in Dixie. Fast food restaurants were just popping up, and Barnaby’s came to Charlottesville in the mid-60’s. Our family, especially our kids, loved it. As soon as we found a table, Angelin and Jimmie raced back to the kitchen window where they watched the pizza man hurl the dough in the air and shaped it for the oven. It was generally about a 30-minute wait from the time you placed your order, but there were a few pinball-type games there to keep the youngsters occupied while the adults sipped cold beer from their icy mugs.
Barnaby’s pizza was simply the best, especially the sauce. The rich tomato sauce was made in-house and was a closely guarded secret. I later met a young man who had once worked at Barnaby’s’ when he was a student at UVA, and he claimed he still had the recipe – but he wouldn’t share.
Barnaby’s served other foods and sandwiches, but we always ordered pizza. It was a wonderful family experience at a time when families were first starting to eat out en masse.
Every now and then, I long for the time when we loaded the kids in the car on a Friday night and headed for Barnaby’s. Those were good days.
