He’s been cooking this up for twenty years.
A Lengthy Island pizza maker stored observe of every pie offered since opening in early 2005 — and gave away a 12 months’s price to the client who purchased No. 1 million on Saturday.
“We offered 56 pizzas on the primary day of opening, so I wrote it down as a nostalgic factor to look again at, however I stored writing it down because the years glided by,” Jonny Dawson, proprietor of Jonny D’s in Huntington Station, advised The Put up.
“Then, just a few weeks in the past, I spotted we had been approaching a million and thought, ‘let’s have a little bit enjoyable with this.’”
Dawson and his workers leaned into the pie phenomenon and introduced a contest on social media: the one that purchased all or a slice of the one millionth pie would win a pizza every week via November 2026.
“If it was a supply, I used to be going to leap within the automotive with perhaps one or two of the opposite guys who work right here,” mentioned 44-year-old Dawson, a former insurance coverage salesman who traded a desk for his countertop.
“We had been simply going to carry a few balloons and a few streamers and shoot it by the individual’s entrance door,” added the proprietor, who satisfied his dad to take out a house fairness mortgage to begin the pizzeria virtually 21 years in the past.
He mentioned the transfer introduced in tons of recent enterprise, with of us clamoring for 52 weeks of free grub. However finally, it was one among his most loyal clients who took the cake — or, fairly, pie.
“I used to be sitting on the ground of my new residence in 2009, consuming this pizza earlier than I had furnishings,” mentioned winner Keesha Bailey, a 41-year-old single mother of 4 who lives close by and “by no means gained something” in her life.
Peace of pizza
“It’s tremendously useful simply to get a little bit break, I do know someday out of the week, I don’t have to fret about cooking,” added Bailey, who a number of clients congratulated after listening to the information Tuesday.
Bailey had come into the pizzeria earlier Saturday for a fast lunch. She had let Dawson know her household would wish a pie later within the day for her 15-year-old son, Rasiere, and some of his teammates from Huntington Excessive Faculty’s soccer group.
“I mentioned, I’ll be again round 3:15-3:30 after the sport,” she mentioned of the fateful half-regular, half-pepperoni order. “I had no thought this contest was a complete factor.”
She returned together with her two littlest ones, 12-year-old boy Raquiese and 14-year-old daughter Mikiyla-Racquel, and obtained the saucy shock.
“We put a hair set off on a balloon contraption, so it was prepared to drag down, and everyone within the again got here out with streamers,” Dawson mentioned of the second captured on video.
“I had no thought what was happening at first,” mentioned Bailey, whose oldest son, 21-year-old Raseac, performs faculty soccer upstate at Morrisville.
“Then immediately my youngsters had been like, ‘We’re consuming pizza each single day,’” added the workplace supervisor in Melville, who admitted her athlete youngsters have championship-sized appetites.
Rasiere’s buddies on varsity can even reap the advantages, as his mother is an everyday contributor to the squad’s weekly pregame potluck with goodies like do-it-yourself ribs and banana pudding.
“He’s already getting texts from teammates, ‘pizza on you?’” she laughed.
“Jokes apart, it simply helps me take a weight off my shoulders in not having to fret about meals typically.”
