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Prince Pizza Route One Saugus MA

Route One Saugus MA — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:05:24 +0000

Prince Pizza Route One Saugus – Our Story

CLICK HERE for the OFFICIAL Prince Pizzeria Website!

JFK was our young new president. Elvis, Roy Orbison and Patsy Kline topped the charts. A large pizza cost a buck. WWII Veteran Arthur Castraberti had a wife, three young children, a good education and a great job with Prince Spaghetti in Lowell, MA.

The year was 1961 and Arthur’s life was about to change.

Prince Spaghetti owned a 12 seat drive-in pizza stand and “spaghetti house” in Saugus—often referred to as an Italian Howard Johnson’s. It was losing money. Prince’s president thought Arthur could turn it around. He had no idea just how right he was. But Arthur was not interested in management by committee. He wanted to own the place.

Arthur and Prince made a deal. No money down, no interest. Arthur had to make good on the failed business’ debts in 10 years and the place was his.

“I had never been in a restaurant kitchen until I bought one,” says Arthur. “When I walked in, I saw two employees—a waitress in the corner reading, and a cook flat on his back asleep. I introduced myself and fired them both. ’But how will you run the place without us?’ they protested. ‘Oh, a great deal better, I imagine.’“

Arthur called his 65 year old father, Oreste. “You know how to make sauce, don’t you pop? Well, I could use your help.” Oreste, a talented cook, worked with Arthur to develop the original Prince Sauce that has made them famous today.

Sales climbed, but they were not enough to cover the debt. “I owed more than I ever thought I could pay. That was my incentive to work harder,” says Arthur. With a family to support and a mortgage every month, Arthur needed income and the restaurant did not make enough for him to draw a salary. So Arthur taught school. Every weekday, he would race from school to the restaurant and work until closing. Weekends he just worked at the restaurant. There were no employees. “It was a terrible time,” he laughs today.

After five long years of tremendously hard work, Arthur began to sense some progress. “I cleaned up the place; gave it heart.” Arthur had transformed Prince into a warm family restaurant where people can relax. He gave huge discounts to the Little League teams, who considered Prince their second home. Seniors received a free meal on Arthur’s parents’ birthdays—a tradition still practiced today.

“I sowed the seeds of my success when I could least afford it,” remembers Arthur fondly. “I took in the kids and the seniors and now those kids come back with their own families and their own teams.”

A few years later, Arthur had finally saved enough money to expand the restaurant. “Every part of this building is an appendage of my body,” asserts Arthur today. “Every expansion was paid for in cash. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

After several expansions over a 10 year period, Prince boasted a large dining room and three function rooms. Then in 1978, Prince added the highly successful 175 seat Giggles Comedy Club, which is now sold out almost every week. Prince Restaurant currently offers seating for about 700 people.

For 44 years, while growing Prince Restaurant into a legendary icon, Arthur Castraberti became known as one of the Boston Area’s most successful restaurateurs. During that time, he poured his heart into the community. He became president of the Route 1 Business Association, founded the Saugus Chamber of Commerce and supported dozens of charities including the Little Leagues, local schools, the Neurofibromatosis and Make a Wish Foundations and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

According to the Boston Globe, Arthur Castraberti is “is one of the visionary entrepreneurs who built Route 1 as we know and love it.”

In 2005, Arthur’s son, Steven, took over ownership of Prince Pizzeria and runs it with his wife, Trisha, who oversees finance, marketing and recently redesigned the Comedy Club and function Rooms.

Steven and Trisha are both active in the community, supporting schools, sports teams and charities. Trisha serves on the North Shore Music Theatre Board of Trustees and was nominated for the honor of 2007 North of Boston Businesswoman of the Year.

Arthur is still actively involved, dividing his time between Gloucester, MA and Sarasota Florida, where he volunteers at in the Cardiac Rehab unit of Doctor’s Hospital.

“Steven is doing an excellent job,” says Arthur Castraberti, “We’re just a family business. We worked hard. We still work hard. We live a good life and don’t worry about what the competition does. We focus on what we do.”

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Billy Costa Reviews Prince Pizzeria Route 1 Saugus on T.V. Diner!

Prince Pizzeria has received numerous awards, including being voted Best Pizza of the North Shore and is often called, “one of our favorite family-style restaurants in New England,” as VisitNewEngland.com puts it. The Phantom Gourmet says Prince is “ideal for feeding a family or a party.”

Don’t take their word for it. Come in and see for yourself. You’ll feel part of the family in no time.

Route One Saugus – Route 1 Saugus History

Route One Saugus MA — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:31:24 +0000

Route 1 Saugus MA

Article Courtesy of: Visiting New England

http://www.visitingnewengland.com/routeone.html

Visiting New England Official Website: CLICK HERE

Written By: Eric H.

Many New England childhoods have been scarred by heartbreaking Boston Red Sox teams, the end of the Larry Bird and Bobby Orr eras, and the closure of the carnival atmospheres at Paragon Park and Pleasure Island. But for me, I was scarred in a most endearing way by the cheesiest road in America, Route One in Saugus and Lynnfield, MA.

I will never get out of my mind that stupid, lime green 50 foot tall dinosaur (currently orange) at the miniature golf course. He always peered over drivers on Route One with the most pathetic smile. It really had no purpose at a miniature golf course. I always thought it would have looked better at a toll booth, or perhaps at a hospital entrance. Regardless, that stupid lime green 50 foot tall dinosaur has served as a microcosm of what resides on this famed “slice of Americana” road. Some of my best memories include:

The Diamond Head Restaurant, now closed, was famous for its huge triangle entrance. The structure was supposed to recreate some sort of Asian architecture, but ended up looking more like a bloated teepee. Inside the staff served food to go along with the MSG. The Diamond Head had a reputation as a breeding ground for future alcoholics, although one could argue that the mountains of MSG had a far more deleterious effect.

Augustine’s, also now closed, sported the world’s oldest woman playing modern pop songs on an out of tune organ. Her playing Beatles songs on that decrepid keyboard set music back many years, and perhaps helped create what we now know as acid reflux. Augustine’s had some excellent Italian food until they started featuring a buffet table about five times the size of that stupid lime green dinosaur and with every known tv dinner specialty. Like the dinosaur, Augustine’s and the organ player soon became extinct.

Courtesy of: www.theorangedinosaur.com

The Hilltop Steak House features beautiful plastic cows in front of the restaurant and seats several hundred people within several rooms at one of the largest and best-known steakhouses in America. I remember walking down the long corridor to the area where a lady with blue hair and a smoker’s voice said, “Number 2,000, honey, go have a drink in the bar. Three hour wait.” At the bar always seemed to be some overweight guy with a square head and disproportionate hairpiece, smoking one cigarette after another. Beside them was always a woman with platinum blonde hair and a quick temper. It was from these people that I was introduced to profanity.

The Hilltop’s aged steaks are quite good but you have to remember once you finally get a seat you are an aged person. I once entered the Hilltop as a high school freshman and left with a B.A. in journalism and mass communications.

Valle’s Steak House, now closed (do you detect a pattern here?) was the place to go when you couldn’t get into the Hilltop. People usually came here with their heads hung low, quite dejected about not being able to get into the Hilltop. I don’t remember much about Valle’s. It was hard to eat steak with your head hung low. I never really saw the decor because of the same reason.

If Valle’s were open today, they would probably offer Prozac to their customers.

The Prince Restaurant stills stands tall, with the exception of the “Leaning Tower of Pizza,” a humongous structure on top of the restaurant emulating Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa. As a child, my lifelong hope was for that structure to finally break and crash down on top of the cars on Route One. As I matured, however, I realized that this was a bad thought. It’s neat to acquire common sense at age 32.

The Prince still offers some of the best pizza served by truly great people. I remember with fondness former owner Arthur who took care of us like we were first family. Perhaps your children will experience this fun place.

The Ship (Mount Vernon Restaurant) stills looks out of place. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it might be the fact that a Titanic sized authentic ship is nowhere near the ocean. Lake Suntaug is close by, so perhaps at night the Ship sailed across the lake to exchange bad food with the Bali Hai Chinese restaurant.

The Bali Hai. Is that Chinese for food poisoning? While it is not on Route One, it’s close enough to be mentioned. I remember…old Asian men in Hawaiian shirts playing “Don’t You Love Her Madly,” by the Doors. I remember getting food poisoning twice. I remember fish tanks with dead fish. I remember sterno darting into my forehead. I remember waiters lying about no MSG in the food — my head knew otherwise. I now remember never to go back again.

How about the giant sausage in front of Karl’s Sausage Kitchen? It actually rivaled that stupid lime green 50 foot dinosaur as one of America’s more peculiar sites. Karl’s Sausage Kitchen was never open. Where was Karl?

The Kowloon. Some of my friends had their first and last date at the Kowloon. Could it have been the plastic tiki Gods, the waterfalls, the combination of Cantonese, Szechuan, Polynesian and Thai cuisines and a comedy club all under one roof? Or the Chinese version of Disneyworld look of the exterior? I wonder how many accidents were caused by drivers being stunned by this architectural gem. All in all , however, the Kowloon has always served truly exceptional food by an amazingly nice staff.

Years have passed and Route One is still one of America’s hideous gems. With two young daughters, perhaps soon they will experience Route One North in Saugus and Lynnfield. If I hear laughter in the back of the car, I will know why. It’s easy to laugh when you are driving by stupid 50 foot lime green dinosaurs, plastic cows, and leaning pizza towers.

Traditions are indeed, priceless