A Slice of Yesterday: Toppers Pizza

I might live in NYC, the Mecca of pizza, but to me, nothing will ever compare to Toppers Pizza in Thousand Oaks, California — a slice of home that to this day, never fails to make my mouth water.

I’ll always remember Toppers Pizza, right next to the Golden Spoon in the Conejo Valley Plaza, further down in the same parking lot of the Sport Chalet where my sister sold snowboards and would eventually meet her future husband. It was right by the fish store where I bought my first aquarium, and the electronics store that always played Avatar on their display TVs. It was close to the Ralph’s where my mom bought all of our groceries, and across the street from the Dickies store that nobody ever bought pants at.

Eating at Toppers Pizza was a post-game ritual for many of my youth sporting events — the light at the end of the tunnel I would look forward to after squeaking my sneakers on hardwood floors or getting bits of turf rubber stuck in my cleats. I would waste my allowance stuffing quarters into the “Metal Slug” arcade cabinet, pounding buttons and jerking the joystick to avoid mummies and tank fire. At a long table in the back room, I would stuff my face with slices of a birthday cake that resembled a basketball, washing it down with Sprite from the soda fountain as the San Diego Chargers played on the television.

I remember it being the first place to ever excite me about eating salad. The centrally-stationed salad bar, a beacon of health in an eatery defined by its grease, always called to me like an old wizard summoning his valiant, yet unexpected hero. You could choose between romaine and iceberg lettuce, pour on the creamiest ranch dressing, and choose from an array of toppings that, at the time, I didn’t even know you could put on salad, like eggs, corn, cherry tomatoes and pickled onions. I would fill my red plastic bowl with different ingredients every time in desperate attempts to solve the puzzle of the perfect salad bowl.

I’ll always cherish how Toppers’ pepperonis were burnt to a crisp, blackened on the edges and umber towards the middle, and round as a bus tire. I miss how the cheese would melt off the crust like the clocks in a Dalí painting, dripping down onto the plate only to be scooped up in my fingers later. I miss dipping the crust in a ramekin of ranch, making the most of any opportunity to savor every mite of flavor.

I remember debriefing with my dad as he chomped on a meatball sandwich, and laughing at Spongebob quotes with my elementary school friends as we sipped on root beer, and sitting in silence as my sister chatted with her friend in the half-moon booth by the window. I remember being so excited to return to Thousand Oaks in high school during our weeklong summer football camp, eager to relive the experience of crunching those pepperonis under my molars, and feeling nervous at sharing my nostalgia for Toppers with my college girlfriend during our weekend getaway to California.

And now, as I live thousands of miles away in New York City, the Mecca of pizza, I still remember the way Toppers made me feel. And nothing here can ever compare to that.