Che' pizzeria opens in Barga Vecchia

In May 2007 the pizzeria Magna Pizza opened to the sound of brass bands and mandolin players with crowds cheering, flag waving and photographers jostling each other to get their photographs as the tape was cut to allow in the hungry new customers eager to try out their wares (article here) This afternoon there were no speeches and no photographers at the re opening of the pizzeria under new management. The rest of the media had more or less ignored the opening of the rebranded pizzeria, now called “Che’ Pizza” but in fact the new venture probably carries with it more significance than most people realised.

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In May of this year the continuing crisis in the Italian industrial sector started to make itself felt right here in Barga with the Luvata company laying off many of its workers (article here) As we reported back then the future for 53 workers at Luvata and related smaller companies was uncertain. In fact one of the workers then laid off, Andrea Cheloni is the man behind the opening of today’s pizzeria.

Not content with sitting on his hands and waiting for the upturn he has instead decided to change direction and taken off his blue overalls and instead donned a white hat of the pizza chef.

A sign of things to come ?

Click on the link below to hear Andrea Cheloni talking about his new venture (in Italiano)

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