Sam Cacia (top) mans
the main oven, which
can hold 80 full-size
sheet pans, enough
for 160 boxes of pizza.
While plain tomato
pie (middle) remains a
top seller, Cacia’s also
offers slabs of pie
with other toppings,
such as pesto and
fresh tomato, plus
breads, rolls, strom-
boli, and cannoli. A
bakery staffer, below,
fills a to-go order.4 COOK’S COUNTRY • APRIL/MAY 2019
Illustration:^ Ross^ MacDonaldBeauty
in the
Basics
Text by Bryan Roof; photos by Steve Klise
ON THE ROAD
I
N 1953, SAMUEL Cacia purchased a turnkey bakery in South Philadelphia.
At first, he offered tomato pie only on Fridays. Today, tomato pie is a permanent
fixture. When the elder Cacia passed away in 1964, his grandson, Sam Cacia, and
Sam’s uncle, Raymond Cacia, took over the business. Although they’ve expanded to
multiple locations, Sam says, “There’s always a Cacia family member in each location.”
In the crowded front space of the South Philly branch, a glass partition separates
customers from the giant rectangular pizzas.
“Most people from the neighborhood buy it
by the slice; most full-size pies are ordered by
out-of-towners,” Sam says.
In the kitchen, the true scale of Cacia’s reveals
itself. There’s a light dusting of flour on every
surface, emitted from a 50,000-pound-capacity
flour silo. Sam grins at a large bubbling pot
of tomato sauce. “I make the gravy every day
myself. I’m the only one who knows how.”
A massive brick oven anchors one wall, faced
with subway tile and darkened grout lines, a
weathered cast-iron door, and an antique dial
thermometer. It’s an “80-pan oven,” Sam tells
me, meaning it can hold 80 full-size sheet pans. (One pan yields two boxes of pizza.) The
oven is heated for 90 minutes each morning until it hits 600 degrees. Then it’s shut off;
the bricks inside retain enough heat to keep cooking through the day. Sam slides pans of
pizza deep into the oven with a pizza peel as long as a jousting lance.
But the massive oven isn’t just for bread and pizza. Every Thanksgiving, Cacia offers it
up to neighbors whose own kitchens are overburdened. Last year, they cooked 125 tur-
keys. Sam has a hard time pinning down the exact number of pies he makes on most days,
but he tells me, “The turkeys, we like to keep track of that.”