So I called Rick to chat about Abruzzi's, and here's what he told me: He got turned on to the place back in 1970 -- though the pizzeria at 604 Pike Street had been around since 1956. "When I first started going here, the grandpa, Angelo, Nick's dad, ran it. He was tossing the pizzas. Then Angelo pretty-much retired. It was kind of a dive, but the pizza was incredible. Nick's ex-wife waited tables there. I'd go in there so often, when I walked through the door, Nick would start making my pizza. He didn't even have to ask me what I wanted."

Rick went to Abruzzi's one last time, in 1994, the last week it was open. "I brought a pizza home and froze it. It was in my freezer for four months and then I couldn't stand it any more, I missed that taste too much, so I ate it. I thought I'd keep it for posterity. When it was torn down, Nick was thinking about relocating, then he got ill and died of cancer," he recalls. "I've been to many pizza places since then, but it's a flavor -- their plain cheese and sausage pizza -- that was just phenomenal." And that, said Rick, was that. Until a couple of weeks ago when his wife was looking through some ads in the paper.

"She saw one for Abruzzi's and the next day I went down to Normandy Park and ordered one. It had the same taste. The same combination of cheese and sauce and that unique texture. Mary Lou had all the old recipes! She looked at me and said, `I remember you!'"

So, anybody else out there have fond memories of Abruzzi's? Let's hear 'em. Then do as Rick suggests, and get yourself down to Normandy Park. Mary Lou has a pizza with your name on it.

[Special thanks to Ty Graham, for the photo of Abruzzi's.]