Problems amid pandemic can’t stop his pizza dreams
It’s 525 degrees in the brick pizza oven in the kitchen of the future home of Rockaway Pizza. Josh Sickels reaches in with a long wooden peel to extract a postcardperfect New York-style margherita pizza. Bright white discs of fresh mozzarella melt into its thin, crispy crust, and green basil pops from a field of lightly painted red San Marzano tomato sauce. He examines it the way a scholar might before sprinkling on a constellation of Pecorino Romano and taking a bite.
His eyes close and a small smile crosses his lips.
Fifty yards and a blacktop parking lot separate the small bunker of a shop where the 38-year-old started Rockaway in 2017 from its new, larger location on Lincoln Way in White Oak. Mr. Sickels is on the cusp of opening, but bridging the gap between the two sites in a pandemic has been an exercise in physical, mental and financial exhaustion.
“If I was older, I might’ve died from a stroke from it or all of this. The stress, I feel like I’ve aged. My face has more wrinkles, and my hair is more gray than it was a year ago,” he said Friday.
An Internet meme “The 2020 I expected vs. The 2020 I got” has become popular over the past five months, juxtaposing pop culture photos of anticipated joy with ones of utter ruin.
Here’s what Mr. Sickels expected from 2020: Opening his dream pizzeria and taking the next step toward ultimately building a family.
Here’s what he got: The end of a seven-year relationship. Diagnosis with a mild neurological disorder. His savings wiped out amid a lawsuit with an equipment vendor. Loss of work and income and a business loan approved and then rejected. Then, a brush with the plague of 2020 itself.
“It’s been one thing after another, month after month,” Mr. Sickels said.
And yet, through all of it, the Wilkins resident is “this
close” to opening the doors on his future, making the singular food that he loves and creates with the passion of an artist and drive of a scientist.
Through his 20s and into his 30s, the Irwin native managed to scratch out success as a touring musician. His power-pop bands The Takeover U.K. and 1,2,3, were regulars on the club circuit and had songs picked up for network television shows and commercials. He hung up his drumsticks in 2014 and drifted for a few years in search of his second calling.
“I had always said for years that if I don’t play music for a living, I wanted to own my own pizzeria,” he said.
He taught himself, in part by drawing on a lifetime of “research,” which mostly consisted of eating pizza in every city he toured or lived in. Rockaway Pizzeria, with a logo and name inspired by the Ramones, was born in early 2017. His New Yorkstyle thin-crust pizza was an immediate sensation because of his execution and the quality of its ingredients.
He decided last year to move into a larger space next door and closed his existing iteration for what he thought would be a short time. That’s when things started going sideways.
His long-term relationship ended. He was diagnosed with persistent postural-perceptual dizziness, which causes chronic dizziness and episodes of vertigo. The equipment he ordered never materialized.
“I found a small equipment company in McKinney, Texas, on the internet that had exactly what I wanted for a price that was almost too good to be true,” he said.
The items were shipped via a third-party trucking company.
“It took weeks longer to receive than was promised and when it did arrive, it was the wrong stuff,” Mr. Sickels said. “I demanded my money back. They said the money had been spent already and that the company was filing for bankruptcy.”
Mr. Sickels said he tried to pursue criminal charges and file a civil suit in Texas but got nowhere.
He was approved for another loan from a company in Los Angeles. The process started in late February and continued into early March. He was approved for a loan, but the money hadn’t been released when the pandemic began.
“They came back and said due to the instability in the restaurant market, they pulled the loan,” he said. “They said it has nothing to do with you or your credit ... but they were giving loans to no one.”
He did pizza popups at the Roo Bar in McKeesport, which was also forced to close.
“At this point, I don’t have a job,” Mr. Sickels said. “I don’t have a way to get a job. I can’t open my restaurant because I got my loan taken.”
Adam DiLauro, a friend and pizzeria owner in suburban Cleveland, helped him out.
“His brother Cody is a CPA and was really on top of all the loans and relief available to people and businesses because of COVID,” he said. “He did all this for me for nothing.”
He applied for loans in late March, heard nothing until late May, and the money was released in early June.
“So for the last two months, I’ve been scrambling to buy everything I need, get ready, doing test baking, hiring — all of this while the coronavirus epidemic is raging on,” he said.
Then eight members of his family came down with confirmed and suspected cases of COVID-19 after a family function. He was denied a test but had the same symptoms as several family members who tested positive.
“I woke up and it was undeniable there was something wrong with me,” he said. “My eyes felt like they were exploding ... like a trash compactor crushing them with pressure. And I’d be exhausted. I did the dishes, and I had to lay down afterwards.”
His 66-year old mother had similar but more severe symptoms. “She literally thought she was going to die, but she recovered the quickest.” He said his 47-year old sister still is not fully recovered after more than a month.
“Everything else happened, so why not that?” he said. “If I’m going to be so affected by corona, I at least want to look it in the eyes, like, ‘C’mon, let’s go,’” he said, putting his fists up like a boxer.
He stared it down and is oddly grateful. “I’ve come out the other side a better and stronger person. I did a lot of work on myself. I did a lot of self-reflection.”
One of the things he discovered is why he loves pizza so much.
“My parents divorced when I was 13,” Mr. Sickels said “My mother was a night-shift nurse, and when me and my younger sister were in middle school, my mother had to go to work. God bless her, she worked as hard as she could to keep a roof over our heads, but often there was a $20 bill left on the kitchen table with a note that said, ‘Order a pizza. Love, Mom.’
“I don’t know if that has planted itself in my subconscious, but it was always my favorite food. It’s a food that I eat during the rough times of my life. It was a comfort food. It was often the only food.”
He’s even gotten back into music, releasing an album with a band called Animal Scream.
He’s waiting on his final occupancy permit from the health department, which he expects any day. In the meantime, he’s perfecting his craft.
“I see art and music in pizza. I approach pizza-making like someone would a blank canvas for a painting,” he said. “... My toppings aren’t just slopped on. They’re placed meticulously for how the experience should be when you’re eating it. Like an album — three upbeat songs and then you bring it down with a slow song. Then you bring it back up again.”
He’s made tens of thousands of pizzas, but the next one he makes for a paying customer may be the most satisfying.
“Whenever I see the cheese turn orange and the crust turn brown on the first pie that goes into the first box, and that first person shows up with a mask on to make the first transaction, then this last year of hell will have come full circle and all will be right in the universe again.”