The beloved pizza from the now-closed Alumni Cafe in Wollaston will soon be sold at a new spot called Alumni Pizza.
QUINCY — It’s been seven years since the Alumni Café served up its last slice of bar pizza and cold beer at its original location in Wollaston, but it’s still remembered by neighbors, city officials and pizza lovers as a Quincy institution.
“It was like a Cheers. Everybody just got along,” Courtney Rego, a bartender at the original Alumni, said. “We had a lot of regulars. People called me crying for weeks when we closed.”
For politicians, it was the place to grab a beer and talk shop. For families, it was a cheap place for a dinner that would please everyone. For city natives looking to reunite with old friends, it was the place to gather on the night before Thanksgiving.
Until now, the memories of Alumni’s crispy crust and bubbling cheddar and mozzarella have been reserved for those who were around during the bar’s heyday. But soon, a new generation will know what it means to eat Alumni pizza in Quincy.
The owners of Rags Tavern in Quincy Point have renovated the space next door on Washington Street and will open Alumni Pizza in the coming weeks. It’s not a reopening of the Alumni Café — more like a nod to the original — but the new joint will have some of the same employees, pizza-makers and bartenders, as well as use the same pizza pans and recipes.
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“The name Alumni Pizza returning to Quincy is like Carnegie Deli returning to New York City with the same pastrami and brisket recipes, even if in a new location,” Kerry Byrne, a restaurant promoter who works with the City of Quincy, said.
Rego, who now manages Rags and is overseeing the opening of Alumni Pizza, said the tavern has always used the same recipe as the original café, but bringing the name “Alumni” back to town is sure to also bring back memories. When it opens, Alumni Pizza will sell the famous bar pie, sandwiches and other food.
Rego said the shop will likely be ready to open in a few weeks.
If the walls could talk, the original Alumni Café’s would have stories to tell.
Brothers Robert and Gerald Player, of Hingham, owned the Café until selling it to Thomas Bellotti, brother of former Norfolk County Sheriff Mike Bellotti, in 1995.
The Café was the site of an illegal sports gambling bust in 1970 that led to 20 arrests, a 10-day suspension and three years of probation by the licensing board.
The Player brothers also owned the Player’s Lounge on Pear Street in Braintree, which was cited by police for gambling and after-hours drinking in 1972, according to Patriot Ledger archives.
A 2005 feature in the Ledger described the Alumni Café as a “fast, cheap, crowd-pleasing dinner.” At the time, pizzas cost $5.
When it closed in 2013, Quincy officials were quick to mourn the neighborhood staple.
“It was more or less an institution,” former Mayor William Phelan told the Ledger. “On Friday nights, they sold more pizzas out of there than you can imagine.”
“The Alumni was as much a part of the Wollaston scene as Barry’s Deli, Brigham’s (ice cream store) and the Wollaston Theatre,” Quincy native Doug Gutro said at the time.
The spot of the original café, at 708 Hancock St., is now home to Winsor Dim Sum Café & Bar.
Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.
https://www.patriotledger.com/news/20200513/quincys-iconic-alumni-pizza-is-making-comeback
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