Sailing the Seas of Cheese

Big mouths try to slay the 'Monster' at Marconi Bros.

Gene Padden

There's a little promotion going on at Marconi Bros. Pizzeria in Hanover Township, and it's quite simple: Eat our Monster Marconi Pizza, and we'll pay you $40, give you T-shirts, and put your picture on our wall.



There are no pictures on the wall, and that should have been our first indication to settle for a regulation lunch. Instead, our eyes deceived our mouths, and we plunked $40 on the barrelhead and picked a table.



In the minds of two of ec/dc's most prolific eaters (Chris Notchick and Gene Padden), ain't no party like a pizza party, and we were ready to sail the seas of cheese and make a little coin in the process. It wasn't until after we committed our lunch (and a few major arteries) to the challenge that we read the fine print regarding the Marconi Monster.



This pizza weighs in with four pounds of dough, three and a half pounds of cheese, 60 ounces of sauce, and oh, two toppings of your choice. (We went with garlic and meatballs.)



"It's basically four trays of pizza that we cut into eight slices, and each slice is a pound, maybe more," said co-owner Brad Marconi, who slaved almost 30 minutes to bake our demise.



They say that when you leap from a tall building, you die before impact because of the shock. Well, not sure if that's true, but we can say that once we saw the pie being rolled out to the table, we knew a substantial plate of humility wouldn't be far behind.



Then came a few more rules. The clock would start the second of our first bite. And there's another catch. You (and one friend) have just one hour to eat every scrap, and at no point are you allowed to get up from the table.



And in case there's any questioning the one-hour time limit, they set a timer right next to the table, which counts down the seconds to your doom. We did the math, and that basically equals eating one pound of pizza every 15 minutes to get the job done.



Right.



Our attempt to finish this pizza was laughable at best, and our countdown went a little something like this: At the 12-minute mark, Notchick's fork broke down, and a replacement was rushed to the table. At 17:00, we realized there was no converting on that pound-per-15-minutes rate we needed. And at 25:00, as he finished his first and only slice, Notchick announced to the joint, "Tonight at The Bog, when that guy from Buona Pizza shows up with those 15 pies, I'm punching him right in his face."



It was one-and-done, as we tapped out with six slices remaining on the table.



"One guy was here the other day, and he was the number-30 competitive eater in the world," Marconi said. "He ate five pieces and his wife ate one, but they still had two left. That's as close as anybody came to finishing one."



Wow - talk about your top five things we would have liked to have known before we tried to slay that puppy.



Brad, 21, owns Marconi Bros. with his brother, Bob, 26. Brad said there are plans to eventually make the Marconi Monsters round, but chasing the world's largest pizza record is out of the question.



"I think the biggest is 172 feet, so ...," he said.



The pizza is made from a family recipe, and the eat-in restaurant (open daily) offers catering and a full menu available for take-out. There are salads, cold and hot subs, spaghetti, pizza, calzones, and stromboli.



Specialty pizzas include Pagach, cheese steak, BBQ shrimp, chicken wing, antipasto, chicken parm, and Melzane, each at $12.95 for a large.