“It was kind of a busy day that day,” Roger Wittrock said of Jan. 24, when his staff was called on to save the day – or at least save lunch.
Wittrock owns Pizza Kitchen in Milford, which served 350 students from Milford Jr./Sr. High School Jan. 24 after the school was evacuated because of a possible natural gas leak.
A statement from the school said the odor of natural gas was reported in the building around 9 a.m.
“At that time all students and staff were evacuated to the elementary school building as a precaution,” the statement said.
Principal Brandon Mowinkel said students grabbed their coats and headed to the elementary with their teachers as quickly as possible.
“Those situations are always hectic and chaotic, and you never know how long they’re going to last,” Mowinkel said.
Two Black Hills Energy technicians inspected the building and found no leaks. They reported that the odor emanated from a pilot light on a commercial oven as the unit went through the normal process to relight.
Around 10 a.m., when it became evident that the kitchen wouldn't be available to prepare lunch on time, Mowinkel contacted Pizza Kitchen to see if it could feed the 350 students by 12:30 p.m.
“We needed lunch,” Mowinkel said. “We wanted to make sure our kids were fed.”
Their mission was accomplished, the school confirmed in a social media post:
“A GIGANTIC thank you to Glenda, Roger, and the entire Pizza Kitchen staff for their quick work in feeding all of the students and staff at MHS today....Without hesitation, Glenda said they would make it work! We appreciate all you do for the students, staff, and community!”
The restaurant staff got to work making 48 pounds of dough and preparing 85 large pizzas, which it delivered to the high school in six trips.
“When they called, we just had to really hustle to make more dough and time things out how we were going to do everything,” Wittrock said. “It happened so quick, everybody just rushed into action.”
Pizza Kitchen is known for its lunch buffet and is a popular spot for midday breaks and noon-hour meetings. Wittrock said it happened to be a slower day – a Tuesday – so the large order didn’t affect too much of its dining room operations.
“The other calls we had for pizza orders, we just told them it would be about a 45-minute wait because of the circumstance, and everyone was understanding and willing to wait,” he said.
That wasn’t all, though.
Pizza Kitchen also supplies mini pizzas for the high school concession stand on game days.
Milford was playing Sutton that night on the basketball court.
“We had to immediately start to prepare for mini pizzas for the concession stand – 105 mini pizzas by 5 p.m.,” Wittrock said. “We had to go from making larges into making mini pizzas. It was a constant pizza-making day.”
Still, that’s not the most pizza Wittrock and his staff have prepared in one day, though it might hold the record for the most pizzas they’ve made at one time.
“A very long time ago, when we were up at our old location across from the fire hall, out at Camp Riverside north of Milford, it used to be a United Methodist campground. They used to have an event called ‘Love Fest’ and they would have 3,000 to 5,000 people come for that weekend, Friday to Saturday. We did pizzas for them throughout the day,” he said.
That required the restaurant to close to the public and call in extra staff for those two days.
“If I recall right, we had done like 400 medium-size pizzas,” Wittrock said.
He said he appreciates the partnership between Pizza Kitchen and the school and his hard-working staff who made it all work.
Mowinkel said everybody came together to help, and the whole situation went smoothly.
“Honestly, it couldn’t have gone any better,” he said.
