Wisconsin Pizza Maker Earns Dough While Tossing It
Restaurant manager Dan Sosnowski tosses a mean pizza pie.
OSHKOSH, Wis., April 30, 2009 -- It's 2:35 a.m. The bars are closed and kegs kicked, now what? For many University of Wisconsin Oshkosh students, the answer is a short trip down the block to Polito's Pizza, where 20-year-old restaurant manager Dan Sosnowski serves up a big dose of good food and flashy entertainment.
"This place really hits the spot after a long night," said Polito's regular Andrew Abraham, a senior majoring in management information systems at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
Sosnowski knows that being open late helps draw a crowd. "We're open until 3 a.m., so when people come in after the bars close, it gets pretty rowdy in here," he said. "We have music blaring and lines that stretch out the door. It's just a great thing to see."
What Sosnowski can do with pizza dough is also a sight to behold. The bar crowd cheer as he tosses the dough into the air with a dazzling display of precision and poise. Then he rolls it back and forth over his arms, using the dough like a Harlem Globetrotter would a basketball during a pre-game warm-up.
"He's amazing!" said Abraham, who counts himself as a Polito's fan. "It's close to all the bars and you can buy pizza by the slice. Sometimes I'm not hungry enough for a whole pizza. I come here so I can just get a slice and be on my way."
Other students agree buying by the slice is the most popular and money-saving way to go since a giant slice will only cost you around $3.
"Just being able to get a slice, sit down somewhere and still talk to your friends at the end of the night is a great reason to come here," said Jared Robinson, a senior majoring in radio/TV/film. "It's like an after party."
As Sosnowski begins to clean up after a long night of making pizzas, it's easy to see he's still fired up. Polito's is open all day, but Sosnowski said the real action really picks up between midnight and 3 a.m.
"It gets real busy between those hours," he said, "but we have a great team working here, and every night it's a rush to be in the midst of it."
The day crowd includes business people and families. UW math professor Jen Szydlik recently held her 10-year-old son Joe's birthday party at Polito's. She said that her son had eaten there earlier and was wowed by Sosnowski's pizza-tossing prowess.
"We did it for the fake pizza dough exhibition," Szydlik said.
At the birthday party, Sosnowski showed his young patrons how to toss pizza using plastic dough. "It's OK if you drop it," he told the kids.
The birthday boy gave Sosnowski and the breadsticks a big thumbs-up. "They were awesome," Joe said.
Sosnowski started his career with Polito's at its first location in Steven's Point, Wis., in August of 2007 when he was looking for a part-time job. He attended college for a short time, but soon realized that working for Polito's was where he wanted to be.
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