Marathon pizzeria reaches new heights

Even when business moves downhill from old location

Marathon City area residents have been able to satisfy their gourmet pizza cravings near the top of the village’s hill for four years.

Now, Pizza Market, a local business owned by Mark and Lori Ludwig, Marathon City, is reaching new heights at a lower elevation.

The business has renovated and moved into 300 Main Street, the former Stieber Drug. The storefront is located two blocks downhill from their past digs, the former Claude Buchberger barber shop.

Lori Ludwig said that the business will keep their same successful menu– including such unique creations as the Crab Rangoon, Philly Cheesesteak, Bacon Cheeseburger and BLT pizzas–but in a more spacious location that affords more storage, better kitchen air temperature control and the possibility of outdoor customer seating.

“It’s great,” a flour-spattered Ludwig said on a Friday tour of the new pizza kitchen. “We have a nice walk-in cooler and plenty of space for large orders. At the old place, we did 57 pizzas for a school order. That taxed us. Now, we can be much more efficient.”

Ludwig said it was no picnic moving kitchen equipment down the hill to the business’ new location.

“Yeah, it was a nightmare,” Ludwig recalled.

She said four burly men with shoulder straps were taxed with moving two 900-pound Bakers Pride ovens from one kitchen to the next.

“It was hard to get four guys through one door,” she said.

Ludwig said local carpenter Gabe Van Rixel and her husband and son, Mark and Logan, were key to remodeling the former drug store into a pizza pick-up place.

“Mark and Logan were here every night and on weekends, working on the project,” she said. “It was definitely a Do It Yourself project.”

Ludwig said the business will continue making its dough-from-scratch pizzas and, in time, start making gourmet- flavored popcorn and additional ice cream desserts.

She said the business considered adding dine-in seating at the new location, but decided against it. Ludwig said people want to drink beer when they sit down to eat pizza, but given the shortage of workers over 18, decided it would be too hard to serve beer.

“We just don’t have the staffing,” Ludwig said.

The business employs between 10 and 12 part-time workers.

Ludwig said, too, the business has a pizza truck to send to events, but the staffing shortage limits its use.

“We could have the truck out three or four days a week, but there is only so much help out there,” she said.

Ludwig said that she enjoys being in the homemade pizza business because pizza brings people together.

“I knew Pep Simek for 20 years and he was a friend of mine,” Ludwig said, referring to Medford’s frozen pizza magnate. “He said that pizza should be square because that would make it easier to share. And I agree with him. When people get together in a group, there’s pizza.”

Ludwig said she also enjoys running a pizzeria at a downtown location. She feels she’s a full fledged member of her local community.

“Oh, that’s definitely the best part,” she said. “You feel the pulse of what’s going on. How else do you learn about things?”

Ludwig, who started in the food service business at age 13, said she continues to learn about pizza and the pizza business. Some things still amaze her.

“People can eat more pizza than I ever thought possible,” she said. “And I’m grateful for that.”