When my friend recently told me, breathlessly, about her experience ordering from Emilia’s Pizzeria in Berkeley, it sounded unhinged.
Emilia’s Pizzeria is “a one-guy takeout-pizza-making concern” open Tuesday through Friday and occasionally Saturdays — you’ll have to check the website to find out. Only 30 pizzas are available per day, and online ordering opens promptly at 8:55 a.m. Pizza pickup times are hyper-specific, from 6:09 to 7:37.
So when I decided to try ordering one of these elusive pizzas myself, I was mentally prepared for a nail-biting experience akin to buying Taylor Swift tickets. The no-frills Emilia’s website, which looks like the type of early 2000s interface I might have browsed in my childhood best friend’s computer room to the tune of an AOL dial-up, immediately tried to reassure me: “There’s Nothing Insidious about Emilia’s Pizzeria.”…