Fatte's, a local favorite

Fatte's Pizza is a Southern California institution. Their generous two-for-one pizza special is just what they do, so much so that when it turned out I hadn't expected the deal the employee answering my delivery order at the Simi Valley shop simply suggested I order a smaller size as if it were quite the most routine thing on the planet. I ordered two of the specialty pizzas, one with a single ingredient substituted, which they did without complaint and without error.

Both pizzas were generously portioned with toppings (the chicken on the Alfredo was particularly good, and the bell peppers, cubed small, traversed the oven better than any way I've had them), relatively thin cheese layer and a painting of tomato/'Fredo sauce. If I'm being honest, I think they could use 1/4 less dough spread into the same pans, but the relatively thick crust is not bready but fluffy, well-cooked and flavorful. The difference is between a more traditional thin crust pie that would likely be very recognizably New York-style (excepting the toppings) and the somewhat more-filling status quo, presenting almost like a good Sicilian pizza-bread, but round and with cheese and toppings.

I never ordered from Fatte's original shop in San Luis Obispo (maybe had some of the pizza, but I never ordered from them, to my memory) and I notice that its in a very non-gown part of town, which led me to the one minor note I feel obligated to record, editing this post 12-hours after first completing it. Fatte's has seven shop scattered across SoCal, but scattered in a distribution of municipalities that betrays a cultural bias. Let me just run the list first, for readers, and we'll see if the pattern jumps out before I write it: San Luis Obispo, Atascadero, Paso Robles, Grover Beach, Santa Maria, Fresno, Simi Valley and San Diego.

Now, I commend the slight diversification evident in the Santa Maria and Fresno outlets, though clearly there are rural/conservative, working class White populations in both of those cities as well. Still, competing for poor, rural Latino market share is a toe-dip, and that's something. The more obvious contrast, however, comes when you overlay a demographic of working-class black communities in California. Excepting the San Diego store, which, still...it's likely that there are not 200 working class black people living within 100 miles of any Fatte's Pizza shop.

I'm not changing my star rating, but I encourage the corporate leadership to reevaluate their strategy for penetrating new markets across the state, because if they cannot compete in Pico-Rivera (forget Compton), they'll never compete in the Bay Area, not when I can already see you, quite clearly.

4 out of 5 Stars