SLO LIFE Magazine AprMay 2021

Professor of Pizza
Ben Arrona has never been to Detroit, but you’d never know that
from eating the Detroit-style pizza he sells most Tuesdays from
his commercial kitchen in SLO. With a two-inch crust that’s piled
high with toppings, each Benny’s Kitchen pizza weighs nearly
seven pounds. Just don’t expect anything exotic.
“I do red sauce and standard toppings,” he says. “No white sauce,
no pesto, no artichoke hearts.” I ask him to make mine however he
wants and he gives me the works: pepperoni, sausage, onion, olives,
and a healthy dose of jalapenos. It is delicious.
But making pizzas is a detour for Arrona; while finishing his PhD
in Global and Imperial History at Oxford University in England,
COVID sent him back to SLO, his hometown.
“I started running Benny’s out of necessity after COVID hit,”
he says, describing how he leased his kitchen last fall after
making Detroit-style pizza for friends for years. All orders and
communication happen via a private Facebook group (which just
passed 4,000 members) wherein customers choose a pickup time.
On Tuesday evenings, the Benny’s Kitchen sees one hundred
people come in for their pies. And on Thursdays, Arrona can
be found selling his vacuum-sealed, par-baked pizzas at Liquid
Gravity in Paso Robles.
In the meantime, he sublets the kitchen to local caterers. “I work
two thirteen-hour days a week on pizza. Otherwise, I’m writing my
dissertation and teaching and trying to live my life.” SLO LIFE
72 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | APR/MAY 2021