Two days after announcing their restaurant’s closure on August 28, Cafe Pizzaria’s owners invited some of their regular customers to enjoy their favorite pizzas one last time.
Co-owner David Webb chose not to work on Cafe Pizzaria’s final night. Instead, he sat in a booth and spent his time talking with his long-time regulars. He recalls hearing people discuss eating their first ever pizza there, going on first dates — some awkward, and some leading to lifelong marriages — all in the booths where he currently sat.
Webb said that they were not able to contact every regular, as they only had a limited number of customers' phone numbers. But everyone that ownership reached out to showed up that night to share memories and gratitude for the restaurant. One frequent customer walked in with a box of tissues.
“There were hugs and there were tears and there were so many people coming and reminiscing about growing up there and growing up when they were little,” Webb said. “It was tough, man.”
The restaurant looked on its last night as it did decades prior, with a hot air balloon mural splashed against the wall in the dining room and the big letters of Cafe Pizzaria highlighting the front of the restaurant. The red and white sign spanning the front of the restaurant helped Cafe Pizzaria stick out amongst the other establishments on Kirkwood. Crosby Webb, son of David Webb, described the restaurant as a “time capsule” of how Bloomington used to be.
“Pizzaria is one of those things that we were stubbornly not going to change anything, if we could not change it,” Crosby said.
The initial plan for the restaurant's closure was to officially close Aug. 31 following the IU football home opener against Florida International University, and they were going to announce this Aug 28. However, some of their employees could no longer work that weekend and they knew they would have a large demand from the Bloomington community.
The workers were given two to three weeks' notice prior to the closure and the opportunity to leave in order to find another job. All the employees chose to stay.
On Aug. 28, David posted the Facebook closure announcement to alert IU students and alumni, Bloomington families and all the people who shared pizza and memories at Cafe Pizzaria.
For the Webbs, Cafe Pizzaria was all about family.
In 1962, Larry Webb began working at Cafe Pizzaria for its original owner, Dick Barnes, as a delivery driver. Over time, he was promoted to assistant manager and then worked as general manager until Larry and his wife, Sharon, bought the restaurant in 1986.
Larry’s son, David Webb, grew up at Cafe Pizzaria and began working full time in 1977.
“I just wanted to help my dad, and that’s exactly why my son started working there, too,” David said.
David’s son, Crosby Webb, started at Cafe Pizzaria in 2006 when he was 15 years old. Not long after Crosby began working there, he became a manager alongside his dad. The three generations of men were co-owners of the restaurant up until its closure.
David’s wife, Andrea, is a graphic designer and designed the restaurant’s pizza boxes, shirts and menus. Crosby’s fiancée, Katie, was a waitress there. Many other members of their extended family worked on and off at the restaurant.
“We might not be the greatest businesspeople in the world, but we try to treat everyone like family, and I think that’s the biggest thing about Cafe Pizzaria that kept people coming back,” David said. “And the food.”
With the same spirit that left the restaurant’s interior unchanged, Cafe Pizzaria also made an effort to preserve its flavor. Karen Beam, an IU alumna, said the food tastes exactly the same as when she had her first stromboli on her first date with Dale Beam — who would later become her husband — in 1969.
When Dale, an IU junior at the time, learned that Karen, a freshman, had never tried a stromboli, he felt obligated to introduce her to what he believed were the best ones around. They ordered strombolis and extra pickles on their first date and every date following that.
When they got married and had kids, Karen and Dale introduced them to Cafe Pizzaria by making a tradition of going every July 3 to celebrate their wedding anniversary with strombolis and extra pickles.
“It feels like without them going on their first date there, it's possible that none of us would be here,” Kelsey Rizzi, one of Karen and Dale’s children, said. “It's where we started.”
“It’s the root of our family,” Koren Bousley, another of their daughters, added.
12 years ago, Dale suffered from a stroke. For the last three years, his health wouldn’t allow him to make the hour-long drive to Cafe Pizzaria for their anniversary. To keep the tradition alive, various family members drove the one hour to Cafe Pizzaria to get Take and Bake strombolis with extra pickles and then drove the one hour back to heat them up and serve at home.
They did this for a few years to keep the tradition afloat, and despite the changes in their lives, they could always count on the Bloomington restaurant to provide them with the same strombolis.
“It was a cornerstone, it was always there, it was always the same, it hadn't changed,” Bousley said. “You can always count on it.”
Last January, Dale passed away due to complications from the strokes he endured. The last time they had Take and Bakes with their dad was in July of 2023.
When Bousley called her mom to tell her the news of Cafe Pizzaria closing, Karen cried on the other end.
“It’s like we're floating adrift now because dad’s gone, and Cafe Pizzaria is gone,” Bousley said.
Like Karen, who had her first stromboli at Cafe Pizzaria, the restaurant was the first place many had their first pizzas. This is true for IU alumnus Rex Horsewood, who had his first pizza at Cafe Pizzaria in 1967.
Horsewood had just been dropped off by his parents at his freshman year dorm, and despite his newfound independence, he and his roommate quickly realized they needed to figure out what to eat. The dining halls were closed on Sundays, so they left the Men’s Residence Center, now Collins Living-Learning Center, and headed to Kirkwood.
Many of the restaurants on Kirkwood were bars at the time, and Horsewood recalls feeling there were limited options for freshmen. Despite Horsewood’s only previous time having pizza being Chef Boyardee pizza kits, they ventured into Cafe Pizzaria.
Horsewood said the few times he returned over his four years at IU were always nostalgic of his first pizza — and his first meal as a Hoosier.
Students, employees and customers alike said the family atmosphere of Cafe Pizzaria was a reason why they kept coming back. Two regulars, Ed and Bridget Dolan, kept going back every Friday for this very reason.
On March 13, 2009, Ed and Bridget Dolan walked out from the Buskirk-Chumley Theater underneath the bright lights of the theater’s marquee on their first date. After the Joan Baez concert, the pair needed to find a food option that allowed them not to eat meat, since it was a Friday, to coordinate with their Catholic religious beliefs. They made their way down Kirkwood and entered underneath the big letters of Cafe Pizzaria.
While they can’t say for sure, the couple is fairly confident they sat down and ordered what became their “usual” for the first time that night: a small pizza with half banana peppers and green peppers for Ed and half tomatoes and pineapple for Bridget.
After their first date, the couple quickly made it a tradition to go there every Friday night.
Four years and many pizzas later, Ed and Bridget were married. They wanted to do something small for their wedding, so they had the reception at Cascades Park, and since it was a Friday, they celebrated with family and friends at Cafe Pizzaria.
The Friday before Cafe Pizzaria permanently closed, the Dolans went to get their usual pizza before they left for vacation. After lightheartedly explaining to their waitress that they are loyal customers and they would be leaving for vacation the following day, she came back from the kitchen to break the news. Bridget recalls being “heartbroken,” both then and now.
The Dolans ordered their usual pizza, and before they left, the kitchen gave them an additional large pizza — how they like it, on-the-house. The Dolans decided to freeze the pizza and bring it with them on their trip. On Aug. 31, at the edge of the Badlands in South Dakota, Ed and Bridget ate their last slices of their usual Cafe Pizzaria order to celebrate their 11th anniversary of their wedding.
“I’m already thinking ‘where are we going to go to get our pizza?’ It became such a family situation,” Bridget said. “We went in, they knew who you were, and it wasn’t just us — there are many other people. They walked in, and they knew them by name.”
Like Ed and Bridget, many regulars of Cafe Pizzaria felt comfortable knowing they would go out to eat but felt like they were at home. Crosby described the regulars as the most important aspect of the restaurant.
“Students come and go, and the townies kind of stay forever,” Crosby said. “So, those are the people you make friends with. And they’re long-lasting friends because you see them year after year after year.”
For David, building relationships with customers was one of the best parts of his job. But at the end of the day, David said Cafe Pizzaria had to close because they wanted to be able to spend time with family outside of the restaurant.
While working as a family had many perks, David recalls only taking Crosby on two family vacations his whole life because it was difficult to leave the restaurant for any more time than that.
For the last year Cafe Pizzaria was in business, Crosby was the only co-owner that was also an active general manager. Since the closure, Crosby has been on his first break since he went on vacation when he was 18-years-old. He’s now 33.
In addition to Crosby being the only general manager, they also struggled to find staff since the pandemic. They went from 25 employees before the pandemic to 11 employees up until close.
“My employees that were there for the last couple years were amazing,” David said. “They were just like our own family, they treated us like family, we treated them like family, and we all worked together. They were just amazing.”
David said they considered passing down the restaurant to new ownership, but it would need to be the right person.
After the Facebook announcement was posted, more than 500 Bloomington residents, former employees, Hoosiers and IU alumni commented on the post. While grateful for the four walls that harnessed family dinners, first dates and first college meals, customers agree that Kirkwood will not be the same without the open doors of Cafe Pizzaria.
“Bloomington being a wonderful, weird place, it was just perfect for a place like Pizzaria to exist for so long,” Crosby said. “I mean a wonderful, weird place in the best way possible, of course.”
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