Harris got a taste of Connecticut

Secret Service picked up 10 Zuppardi’s pies during VP’s visit to state

WEST HAVEN — Lori Zuppardi thought her nephew was joking when he told her the Secret Service was waiting at the curb to pick up pizza.

The co-owner of Zuppardi’s Apizza on Union Avenue was another local pizzeria paid a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris’ security detail during Harris’ visit to New Haven and West Haven on Friday. Harris staffers also picked up 15 pies from the Elm City’s famed Sally’s Apizza, the legendary house of New Haven-style “abeetz” on Wooster Street.

In West Haven, Harris visited the West Haven Child Development Center.

What was the Harris team’s order in West Haven? Ten pies in total, according to Zuppardi — mozarella and sausage; mozzarella and pepperoni; and mozzarella with onion, pepper and mushroom.

Zuppardi said she added an 11th pie that had just come out of the oven. “Had I known it was them, you know I would have thrown in a fresh clam pizza,” she said, reached by phone Saturday.

She did not get to meet Harris, just two Secret Service agents who identified themselves as part of the vice president’s security team. After her nephew told her the two agents had arrived to pick up the order, she came out to meet the two men — wearing wired earpieces, naturally — whom she described as very nice.

Another worker delivered the pies to the security team’s car curbside.

“Coming from a business that’s owned by two women, having our vice president have our pizza, I mean, that’s pretty special,” said Zuppardi. She co-owns the business with her sister, Cheryl Zuppardi Pearce, but many members of their family are involved in the business in one form or another.

“The first thing we did after they left, we texted the kids,” she said. “For such a close Italian family this is such a huge thing,” she added.

She said she was happy when Harris was elected, the first woman and first woman of color to be vice president in the nation’s history.

“Again, being a woman — seeing a need for some female leadership, it was a great thing,” she said.

And: “We do feel that the vice president has excellent taste in pizza,” Zuppardi said.