Windsor pizza delivered some 4,000 km to Vancouver Island
Windsor woman helps arrange delivery for her brother out west
It's not unheard of to send a pizza made in Windsor across the country, but a recent delivery may have been one of the furthest ever sent.
Madonna Beaudette of Windsor, Ont. arranged for a few pizzas to be sent to her brother, JP Arsenault who lives in Parksville, B.C. on Vancouver Island.
"I'm thinking my nutty brother's doing something nutty again," she teased — something the siblings do often, she said.
Beaudette and Arsenault's pizzeria of choice is the long-standing Windsor Pizza on Jefferson Boulevard. They visit each time Arsenault is in town from B.C.
WATCH: JP Arsenault feeds his birds Windsor Pizza
"The last time he was here was in 2004 and he took a pizza box in his suitcase, which did not end up well because they tossed luggage around in airports," Beaudette said.
"So the pizza didn't. It was kind of horrible, but not really when he got home. So this time he just called me like two weeks ago and said, 'I want pizza from Windsor Pizza. Let's make this happen,' and I thought OK this is doable."
Turns out, shipping pizzas across the country is very common and not all that hard to do.
Owners of Windsor Pizza, Frank and Marianne Deluca, say they ship pies to London, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary at least a few times a month. The pair have the workflow down.
"First of all, we cook them at least a couple of days before and we just cook them enough for it to just harden up, and then we let them sit out, and then we freeze them right away," explained Frank.
Shipping by courier to Ottawa or Toronto is a bit easier, said Frank, because the pizzas stay frozen in the mail and then can be fully cooked by the person who receives them. For anything going further, dry ice is also an option to keep them fully frozen.
But Arsenault on Vancouver Island opted for an overnight shipment of his 25 lbs of pizza. His sister rounded up the two large kings, and a couple of smalls and packaged them up herself in boxes on Wednesday.
"It wasn't all that complicated," said Beaudette. "My brother's already paid for everything. Anybody can actually order pizza and have it shipped — pay for the pizza, pay for the shipping, there you go."
Sure enough, the next day the pizzas arrived safe and sound to Arsenault, who shared a few pieces with his rescue birds.
"Any pizza they like, they love the pizza crust," he said. "It's not the best for them, but we only let them have a little bit."
The whole project was a fun adventure for the siblings, who say it lightened their spirits a bit during the pandemic.
Arsenault said he had always wanted to ship the pizzas over, and now he's finally done it.
"The taste is different, and that's what I grew up on and so it's just kind of a nostalgia thing and it is really good pizza," he said. "I just wanted the taste of home."
The owners of Windsor Pizza say it's the furthest they've ever seen one of their pies go.
"It's an honour," said Frank. "It's something that makes you proud."
They credit the traditional way of creating their pizzas, along with homemade Galati cheese for that unique Windsor taste.
"You can't get that style of pizza anywhere else," said owner Marianne.
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