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Restaurant in Hazleton Offers to Pick Up Customers

HAZLETON — An Italian restaurant in Luzerne County has a new approach to boosting business. In addition to delivering pizza to customers, it’s also ...
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HAZLETON -- An Italian restaurant in Luzerne County has a new approach to boosting business. In addition to delivering pizza to customers, it's also delivering customers to the restaurant.

For 40 years at Vesuvio Italian Restaurant, making pizza and fresh Italian food has been a family tradition.

Started by an Italian couple who immigrated to Hazleton, now the place on North Wyoming Street is run by their children. Rosanna Ayers is one of them.

"I'm here running it for them, trying to keep the tradition on," she said.

With her parents both gone, Ayers wants to not only to keep the family tradition alive, but grow it, so she started something new.

"We were thinking of the older generations and we were thinking of doing them a service."

For about a week now, the restaurant's delivery guy, Gene DeStefano, has been not only delivering pizzas to customers, but he's also been picking up customers and bringing them to the restaurant. So far, five customers have taken advantage of the service.

"They're just happy. They said we always wanted something like this, but this never happened before and they're just thrilled to get out," DeStefano said.

The owners of Vesuvio say they will pick up people within 10 miles of the restaurant and bring them here to enjoy a meal. They are not charging anything for the service. It's one they say is priceless.

"We are not here just to make the buck. We care about what it looks like. We care that our customers come in. These are people that are coming in since my parents had the place," Ayers said.

Delivering customers to the restaurant and then taking them back home is a service Ayers hopes customers will appreciate and a service her parents would be proud of.

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