SLO LIFE Dec/Jan 2020

AN IDEA THAT STUCK
I nab my friend (e.g. the impetus for this story) and we
head to dinner at Del’s Pizzeria in Pismo Beach. When we
arrive, owner Ryan Delmore welcomes us from the open
kitchen window, and we sit at a table with a red and white
checkered tablecloth and a view of the ocean, just down the
street. Italian opera pipes through the speakers.
Delmore brings us a little basket of rolls and a ramekin of
whipped honey butter. I slather a roll with butter and take a
bite. “Oh my gosh,” I say, my eyes rolling back in my head a
bit, “this is like a cupcake.”
The dough for the rolls, Delmore tells me, is the same
dough for Del’s pizzas, and the honey butter is just that:
local honey whipped into Irish butter. “It was Big Ed’s
idea,” says Delmore, explaining that his grandfather
thought up the rolls and honey butter concept in 1995, two
decades after the restaurant opened in its original Shell
Beach location.
“Honey butter isn’t very Italian,” he says. “But honestly, we
get more comments on this than anything else.” SLO LIFE
84 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | DEC/JAN 2020