PARKERSBURG – The Italian cuisine of Napoli’s is as much a recognizable feature as the yellow pickup which transports the food throughout Wood and Washington counties. Wayne and Bill Waldeck of WAL-Bon have a story about pizza delivery. After 50 years in the pizza business, there’s not a whole lot of happenings in the world of pizza the brothers haven’t seen and don’t have a story about.

Wednesday marked 50 years WAL-bon of Ohio has maintained the Napoli’s name. Fifty years is a long time for anything but especially in the competitive world of pizza delivery and other Italian foods.

Napoli’s wasn’t always going to be the name of the business. It was going to be Giavonni’s. Wayne said that was halted legally quickly. “Giavonni’s was already legally franchised,” he said. “So it went back to the drawing board.” Wayne was not in the pizza game. He was working for the Internal Revenue Service at the time. He was traveling through Italy and had the idea “I was going to write down the name every Italian town I thought would make a good name for an Italian restaurant. I did and we voted. Napaly was the winner and we trademarked Napoli’s. Now, every pizza house which calls itself Napoli’s is violating our trademark and we could make them change their name if we wanted to be stinkers about it, but why go to all that trouble.”

There are nine Napoli’s locations, with eat in locations in South Parkersburg and Belpre. The first location was 210 Main Street in Belpre, where the WAL-Bon commissary is today. “All of our food comes out of that building every day,” Wayne said. “It’s all made there so it has the same taste no matter where one orders from.”

Wayne said there is to be another South Parkersburg restaurant to be built – right behind the current one. “We expect to start building in August,” he said, “and be finished 90 days later – sometime in November. The location will stay open during the construction. Then we’ll close it for about a week while we tear down the old building and take care of the parking lot.” He added seating for the restaurant will be approximately 110. Bill added the plans for the new building were expected to be in hand sometime this week.

Their attention quickly turned back to the first store and the discussion continued. “Pizza was almost a novelty then,” said Wayne. “It was not the main restaurant type item it is today.”

“There was a Bel-Park Dairy in the back of the building,” said Bill. “But the pizza business just took off and within a year we were putting in a second store and it was our first in Parkersburg in what used to be an old Kentucky Fried Chicken building in the area what is now the Astorg Used Cars and old Sebastian’s location.”

“That was before the (Grand Central) mall,” said Wayne. The Home Depot location was a drive-in movie location. Life has certainly changed.”

Napoli’s started with a delivery vehicle, not a fleet like today. “We started delivering in Belpre almost as soon as we opened,” said Bill. “We pretty much wrote the book on delivery,” added Wayne. “That’s because we were the first one in the nation to deliver.”

Napoli’s was recognized nationally for the new pizza delivery, known as home delivery. “We received awards in (Las) Vegas and we were the first pizza operation to receive awards from the National Pizza Association for our knowledge of pizza delivery,” said Bill.

“We later enhanced that with providing our delivery vehicles with two-way radios so the drivers had constant contact with the restaurants,” said Wayne. “That way they knew if the driver was lost or on their way back to the restaurant. We’re one of the few restaurants with an FCC radio license.”

Napoli’s also had another first in the 1980s according to Wayne and Bill. “In the early 1980s we got a guy,” said Bill, “well, really he wasn’t very old, he was a West Virginia University student Kevin Keegan from somewhere along the Clarksburg-Fairmont area….” and Wayne continued, “and we got him to write a computer program which allowed us to accept orders at one phone number and then send that order to whatever restaurant covered the area of the order. We were the first in the nation to do that.”

Those numbers are still in use today. “We tried to keep it as simple as possible,” said Wayne. “422-1111in West Virginia and 423-1111 in Ohio. Kevin developed that system and we had $100,000 life insurance policy on him in case something happened to him. No one else knew how to fix it if something went wrong.”

What isn’t new and not subject to change is the recipes and the ingredients. “Not changed in 50 years and won’t change in another 50,” said Wayne. “Customers say it tastes the same now as it did years ago. We’re not buying cheaper ingredients nor are we buying anything that’s GMO (genetically modified organism). We are so close to being an organic pizza chain that it is not funny.”

Wayne added it’s pizza, subs and pasta in that order in terms of sales at Napoli’s. “You have three basic ingredients to a pizza, all pizzas have it. You have crust, cheese and sauce. We tried mozzarella but didn’t feel it gave the rich taste which provolone does,” he said. “It’s about 25 percent more expensive, but it is higher in butterfat, which gives it the richer flavor.

“We could use less expensive products but that would mean less quality for the consumer,” Wayne said. “It’s a highly competitive business, the pizza business. You don’t get, and keep, customers by offering a substandard product. We don’t, and won’t, offer substandard food to the customer.”