Place and Ritual: Marion’s Piazza
Ritual infiltrates many aspects of our lives. The familiarity of routine guides our paths, how we delegate and utilize our time, and define ourselves in relation to the communities and worlds around us. Geography influences our rituals and socio-cultural reference points. Small businesses and local cultural phenomena come to represent more than themselves: patrons, workers, and the community at large have hands in defining the narrative of the entity through their experiences of it. Through ritual, ideation, and story telling, the collective play a part in defining what a physical space or practice can mean for the larger community. To me, Marion’s Piazza is one such local phenomena that exists far beyond selling pizzas and hosting parties.
Marion Glass opened Marion’s Piazza in 1965. According to their website, Marion’s shifted expectations for local pizza shops: Marion’s offered a dine-in option with seating for over 200 people, while all other local pizza shops only did carry-out service. Outdoor Italian cafes inspired Glass to decorate his restaurant similarly in a Midwestern-climate-friendly way, featuring an open central seating area festooned with plants and brick partitions and stucco. Marion’s became a staple for local gatherings and drew greater crowds through their partnership with the Kenley Players Summer Theater, which brought famous folks into the establishments from 1966-1995. Pictures of many famous guests, such as Mickey Rooney and Sally Field, decorate large swathes of the walls in Marion’s restaurants. 55 years later, Marion’s nine locations remain true to Glass’s original vision and resonate with generations of people.
My personal connection to Marion’s comes through my grandpa. He often took us there for dinner before his mid-week sermons. He always got the pepperoni pizza with a pitcher of root beer, and always managed to find comraderie with workers and patrons alike. My twenty-fifth birthday was marked with my very first Marion’s pizza party, and the joy I shared with friends and family made it all more dear. May we have many more years of square-cut pizzas and sixties-era Midwestern chic decor.
