Lovely pizza picture

Thank you

Seb throwing the dough

Pizza demo

Our Milton Keynes cow pizza

Micky the

Papa Luigi notch up 25 years in MK

Local pizza company Papa Luigi are proud to have been delivering pizzas and other delicious meals in Milton Keynes for a quarter of a Century, renown for high quality Italian pizzas Papa Luigi are Nationally recognized as the first pizza delivery company in the UK and they are also recognized as being the first company to introduce the housewife�s favourite supermarket offer of Buy One Get One Free back in the 80`s and are regular winners of awards with the Pizza and Pasta Association.

Papa Luigi director Antonio Scibelli commented �We are so proud that our pizzas have been so popular, my granddad Luigis home made tomato sauce has always been the starting point for a delicious pizzas, he is a legend in the Neapolitan region of Quindicci for his log fired pizzas and we believe we have continued his eye for quality and tradition in Milton Keynes�

Antonio also added that many of the original customers who first used the service are still regulars and three of the original crew are still with the company and those who have left often pop in to say hello and order their favourite pizza.

To celebrate the 25th Birthday Papa Luigi will be making a special Milton Keynes pizza, representing the legendry Concrete Cows which are just a stones throw from their delivery unit, they will produce a delicious pizza with the cow theme, they are having some special cow shaped pizza tins made by Santo who produced the Queens head pizza which was so popular for the queens Golden Jubilee.>

Fund Raising

How PapaLuigi joined in the fundraising in Huntingdon Pudsey pizzas on sale in Huntingdon in aid of Children in Need 07:01 - 20 November 2009 PUDSEY Bear shaped pizzas will be on sale in Huntingdon this evening (Friday) to raise money for Children in Need. Papa Luigi in St Margaret�s Way, Huntingdon are joining in the fundraising fun and making Pudsey-bear-shaped pizzas to sell to customers. The man behind the idea is owner Stef Malajny who, with assistance from his five-year-old son James and cousin, Amelia created a giant Pudsey pizza. They used tomato and mozzarella for the base, sweet corn for the fur, his buttons were salami and olives, his bandana were onions and red peppers and his eye was a hard boiled egg. Stef said: "The big Pudsey took over an hour to make. We were all really pleased with the results and nobody wanted to eat him as he looked so nice." Money raised from the sale of mini Pudsey Bear pizzas on Children in Need night (tonight, Friday) will be donated to charity. INFORMATION: Anyone wanting to buy a Pudsey pizza should phone Stef on 01480 412241.

Warmington Playgroup toddlers get a “pizza the action”

Toddlers at the Warmington playgroup tried there hand at making pizzas when local pizza company Papa Luigi popped into the playgroup to demonstrate the art of pizza making, 22 very excited youngsters watched with interest when Stef Malajny owner of the pizza chain showed the three to four year olds how to make a lovely pizza, the youngsters then all made their own pizzas to take home for their mums and dads with the boys making football shaped pizzas and the girls with the help of Stef made some special heart shaped bases .

The art of dough throwing was also demonstrated and then the youngsters also had a fun competition to see who the throwing champ was, then the playgroup team leaders also joined in the fun spinning the bases around.

Playgroup leader Josephine Black commented, “we all had a great time and can only thank Papa Luigi for such a wonderful day, we all took home pizzas that we made ourselves and Stef also cooked some of his “Capello” charity pizzas which were demolished at the lunch break, it has been a great fortnight for the group as last week we were invited to see the launch of the Nene Valley Railway postal pick up apparatus which was so much fun.”

Stefs son, 4 year old James is a pupil at the playgroup and he was thrilled to see dad in action in the classroom, Stef added “ this is our twenty fifth anniversary for Papa Luigi and I have been doing the pizza demos since we have started so it was very special to be able to do the demonstration for my young lad and his friends, even if his pizza only consisted of salami with no tomato and cheese necessary!”

The Capello charity pizza which was given the thumbs up by the Warmington Playgroup is named after the new England manager, and has been brought in as part of Papa Luigis 25th Anniversary Celebrations, local Capello look-alike Howard Brown has also joined in the fun and will be helping the fund raising, 20% of every Capello pizza sold will be donated to the RNIB.

Stef has lots more demonstrations booked and will also be organizing the World pizza eating championships once again on the cathedral square so look out for that one if you’ve got a big appetite!

History of Papa Luigi

Papa Luigi thru the years A bit of earlier history Although the papa Luigi Dial a pizza business is celebrating its 25th Anniversary the Scibelli brothers Sebastian and Tony along with business partner Stef Malajny who formed the business go back much further, all three were school buddies and their very first business was planned after a game of five a side footie at the Local Youth Club.

The first business venture at the Community centre It was July 1977 that the young �apprentices� put on their very first money raising project at there local community centre, it was advertised as a Tamla Motown night of Entertainment with local star DJ Roger Black playing popular Motown tunes, it was a moderate success making �32 profit but is gave the lads a hunger to put more of these events on.

Its World Disco Dancing time The lads continued hiring venues, under the banner of S & M Entertainments; they booked many famous acts of the day including Radio 1 djays Steve Wright and Dave Lee Travis and they played hosts to the Regional finals of the televised World Disco Dancing Competition.

Kissograms, the first of many firsts Having captured the local disco market the young Entrepreneurs then set up an Entertainment Agency and they lay claim to also running the first Kissogram agency in the UK, partner Tony Scibelli picks up the story , �One day we had a request for a Kissogram, we had heard of them in America but they hadn�t made their mark here, that didn�t deter me I just said no problem and then we had to find a pretty young lady who didn�t mind wearing next to nothing, it was hard work but it had to be done.� Kissograms were a far cry from pizzas but the young lads found it a real grounding for what was to come in the promotional fun side of the business

It�s Goodbye to the Entertainment The Entertainment set up ran for several more years before finally closing when the pizza business took off leaving great memories for the partners and quite a few married couples who met at their events.

Moving in to the Restaurant trade It was back in 1983 that Sebastian Scibelli was made redundant from Perkins engines having worked there several years as an engineer, he had an opportunity to purchase a restaurant that was being run at the time by his brother in law, who although was Italian he ran the restaurant as a Greek Restaurant �The Kebab House� (first Kebabs in the region)

Papa Luigi Trains the boys After a few months of trading, Tony and Stef Joined Seb in the Restaurant and it was decided that it would be better to use their own National dishes in the cuisine and the new Restaurant was named after Luigi Scibelli, he is famous for his log fired pizzas in the Southern area of Italy with his special homemade family tomato recipe, he was a living legend at the Parrocino in Sorrento and that is where the lads went for there chefs training. This was backed up by Tony and Seb`s mum, Rosa Scibelli who made some of the most delicious pasta in the Italian community.

Papa Luigi Restaurant is born The Papa Luigi Restaurant was opened, log oven was built and the trade instantly doubled however the young businessmen realised that the early part of the week was much quieter than the weekend so the idea of delivering was brought in with the belief that if customers weren�t coming out earlier part of the week then they would go to them.

Papa Luigi Dial a Pizza follows It was 1984 and Papa Luigi Dial a Pizza was launched , unbeknown to the business men they had created the first pizza delivery service in the UK , A small phone booth was built in the kitchens and the aim was to get the pizza delivered in 30 minutes. A second- hand mini was purchased as the delivery vehicle and it was fitted out with a home made heated oven to ensure the food was still hot on arrival, all was going great until the day before the first delivery when the new bespoke delivery vehicle was stolen from outside the restaurant, bearing in mind this was parked opposite the police station everyone was most upset.

The local paper comes to the rescue Raring to go but with the heated delivery vehicle being stolen the business was put on temporary hold, the local paper was contacted to see if they could help and a story was put out asking for members of the public to look out for the van, that same day Papa Luigi received a call to say the van had been found, by an unemployed youngster called Mark Shinn who was offered a job as delivery driver, Mark was delighted to get a job as a reward, the paper did a follow up story and this was noticed by the local TV news channel and they did a five minute feature on the story and Dial a pizza was back in business.

Viva La rock Wow It was decided that the restaurant could be combined with the pretty Kissogram girls serving the customers and the Restaurant was changed to Viva La rock, although it was a great hit with the fellows unfortunately the females were not quite so keen, however the Bar and disco upstairs proved a very popular with the young students and regularly star Djs like Andy Bellwood would pop in and entertain the crowds.

The Delivery business then grows Over the next few years the business grows into a small franchise with shops in Peterborough, Lincoln, Huntingdon Northampton and Milton Keynes, always sticking to the quality ingredients that Luigi had recommended

Buy one get one free, another first Back in the late Eighties there was a housing crash very similar to the present day credit crunch, it was realised that if the high quality could be matched with some great offers than the business would continue to flourish and the customers would be even happier, financial guru Stef Malajny did some calculations and worked out that if they gave the additional pizza away they would be busier and make up for the cost of the extra ingredients, it was a calculated risk but was put on trial with the Thomas Cook workforce one evening, with the trade nearly tripling and the crew blowing fusses it was agreed that this would be a great promotion. Buy one get One Free has since been copied by all the Supermarkets, so every time you get a bargain then we have Stef to thank.

World Pizza eating Champs The guys thought what would be a great way to raise money for charity and have some fun at the same time, the World Pizza Eating Competitions were born,, World record holder for the 12� cheese and tomato at the moment is, big Andy Munden from the Peterborough Scooter Club with a very sharp time of 3 minutes 42 seconds, Andy then went on to eat 2 more pizzas in the endurance test, that�s what we call a healthy appetite.

Winning awards Papa Luigi have won several awards at The National Pizza and Pasta award days, Tony Scibelli picked up Pizza Personality of the year award in 1988. Big Stu Morley is the Worlds highest pizza throwing Champ, at six foot seven inches tall he did have a slight advantage over the shorter Italian chefs. Stu was assisted by Franco and Anna Baylis making the 24inch Award winning Quatro Stagioni, and Stef Malajny has always carried on the tradition he started of Pizza Demos for young and old alike, once again recognized by Pizza and Pasta and not forgetting receptionist Niki Griffiths who won the Receptionist of the year in the Anglian area, a true award winning team.

Franco and Abby A few of the Papa Luigi crew are celebrating the full 25 years with Papa Luigi Franco Baylis who joined as a young driver and Abbi Bahnam who was a student and part time kitchen assistant are not only still with the team they have recently joined forces and have franchised the two Peterborough shops, Franco also married his sweetheart Anna Cipriano, Tony and Seb`s sister who he met whilst working at the Lincoln road shop, , he said she was always beautiful and with her Italian cooking she�s irresistible, Anna�s son Pep, who is a local columnist and all round Man about Town, also helps with the promotions of Papa Luigi.

Hitting the headlines Papa Luigi are regularly in the headlines with there charity fund raising and fun events and in 20002 there was real controversy when to Celebrate the Queens Golden Jubilee Stef decided to make a pizza depicting the queens head, the story was front page news in the papers and then the TV crews once again picked up the controversial story. Although Stef being a true Royalist thought it would be a great idea, apparently some members of the public thought it was a step too far, in particular an ex local councilor was most distraught at the sight of the very large poster with the Queen munching on her pizza and the Corgis looking for tit bits. Stef commented, �It was all done as a bit of fun depicting a modern twist to the Royal family and the Liz�s Great Big Golden pizza has always proved to be very popular�

Ground force TV star fall in love with the Pizzas The very popular garden make over show featuring Alan Titmarsh and the much talked about Charlie Dimmock came to Bretton Peterborough in 2001 to wave their magic wand over a local hardworking nurse�s garden. It wasn�t all magic in fact it was a lot of hard graft and the guys including Tommy Walsh worked up a big appetite, they fancied pizza and saw and was recommended Papa Luigis, they enjoyed the pizzas so much they then ordered the pizzas two more times and invited the press down to photograph them munching on the pizzas as a thank you gesture, the pizza deliveries were also featured on TV with Tommy getting stuck into a Papa Luigi Special

25 years Flew by thank you That�s the first 25 years for Papa Luigi, partner Stef Malajny commented, �Well those years just flew by we hope that 2009 is the start of our next 25years and would just like to say a really big thank you to all our customers for supporting us and also all the charity events that we put on it is most appreciated.� We hope you enjoyed the history of Papa Luigi and we will update all new events onto our Blog

Papa Luigis sign up Capello pizza for their 25th Anniversary Celebrations

One of local pizza delivery Papa Luigis claim to fame is that they are the countries first pizza delivery service, yes it was 25 years ago that they first started delivering pizzas from their Riverside Restaurant that is now part of Rivergate and to mark their Anniversary they have introduced a very special pizza, called the Capello. This yummy pizza is being used as a charity fund raiser with 20% of all profits going to the RNIB.

The Capello pizza has mozzarella tomato and then on one half there is Italian salami also red and green peppers which represent the Italian flag and the other half has best Lincolnshire sausage and red peppers to represent the English flag, the pizza was thought up by Anna Scibelli who is responsible for the Papa Luigis legendry home made spicy pizza sauce, Anna Italian culinary skills for the Italian half whilst, whilst Anna`s husband Franco suggested putting his favourite British banger on the other half.

Papa Luigi are being supported on their fund raising trail by local Capello look alike Howard Brown, Howard is continually being mistaken for Capello and has already made several appearances as a look a like, Howard joked “The pizza boys asked me to pose for photos outside one of the Papa Luigi shops which was great fun and all the traffic kept pulling over and asking me for my autograph, even I was shocked by the great response.” Howard will help promote the new charity pizza with lots of guest appearances and free pizza samples to tempt more sales.

All the Papa luigi shops will sell the pizza for the charity and franchise owner Stef Malajny is also a founder member of the Pizza and Pasta Association who have 3000 members, he will contact them in a bid to get them all supporting the charity pizza fund raiser, Stef commented “Howard has kindly agreed to visit as many pizza shops as possible in our fund raising bid so with a bit of luck we can raise a tidy sum”

Papa Luigi have already set the fundraising going by putting a £100 in the charity coffers as a thank you gesture to Howard for posing for photos which have been used on the new menu.

Remember if your feeling peckish and fancy a pizza, make it a Capello wherever you see them on sale.