Delivering a Pizza Near You

Friday night in Hoboken, an army of deliverymen emerges from restaurants all over the city. Their goal is the same: to get dinners to doorsteps faster than customers can call to complain. Driving cars, riding bikes, cruising sidewalks, crossing streets, riding elevators, and even passing each other in hallways, they are everywhere in a hurry. The work is hard, the competition is steep, and sometimes the tips are downright lousy.

"We get slammed on Fridays," said Napoli’s deliveryman Mike Maus. He was busy packing bags with pizza and entrees—and salads balanced on top—and loading the backseat of his Toyota Camry.

"This keeps me out of trouble," he said. Maus is 39, tall and blond, and has an accent that requires no guessing where he’s from: Brooklyn. 

He started delivering for Napoli’s five years ago, when his good friend, owner Frank Volpe, needed help.

"He’s a hard worker," Volpe said, "very motivated, and very outgoing." In addition to serving as the restaurant’s first driver, Maus had even torn down a couple walls during Volpe’s renovation of an old dry cleaners’ into a brick oven pizzeria at 1118 Washington St.

Maus said that in exchange, Volpe promised him free pizza for the rest of his life, and since then, the deliveryman has gained 50 lbs. Maus, a self-proclaimed foodie, said he blames it all on Napoli’s.

"The margarita is really good," Maus said. "Don’t get me wrong. But if it’s clam pie or white pie, I would never ever get it at any other pizzeria."

During the week, Maus eats Weight Watchers Smart Ones to make up for the pizza he is going to have on the weekends.

Inside his car, the ocean mist air freshener is strong, rap is blaring and the heat is cranked to the max. Maus took a second to wipe his brow. "I try to get it to them as hot and safe as possible," he said. Maus said he’s a good driver and has only gotten one ticket for double-parking.

"The cops don’t generally bust your chops," he said, "but every now and then, once in a blue moon, they come over and bust your chops."

Getting used to Hoboken’s grid took some time, said Maus, but now, no matter where he’s going, he takes the path of least traffic lights. He drives slowly while trying to match the address on the receipt with the buildings on the block.

"When you can’t read the numbers, it’s the worst," he said. Several flights of stairs or a persnickety doorman can also hold up deliveries.

Most of the customers he encounters, said Maus, are nice. Some don’t say much; others have invited him in to their parties. Maus said he’s delivered to at least one famous Hobokenite, Eli Manning, when the Giants quarterback ordered a Caesar salad and a large margarita pie with pepperoni and onion. Maus said he asked Manning if he was really Manning, and the football star answered affirmatively.

"I didn’t mention I’m a Steelers fan," Maus said.

After Volpe found other drivers, Maus took a break from delivering for a while. But after his venture capital business flopped in 2008, he needed to find work fast, and Volpe was more than willing to give him a job.

He said he thought about opening a pizzeria of his own but decided on starting a new company with another friend instead.

"I’m more of a salesman than a pizza-maker," he said.

Maus now works at Napoli’s Friday and Sunday nights and makes about 20 to 30 deliveries each time. He makes $5 an hour plus tips, he said, and the average tip in Hoboken is about $3 to $4. But there have been a few times Maus got no tip at all.

"It’s a little discouraging," he said, but he never complains.

Volpe said it’s just part of the job. "These guys take the good with the bad," he said. "They know it’s not a 9 to 5 job. They’re not sitting behind a desk. This is the job that they chose."

Volpe started in the business as a waiter at his stepdad’s place, Lombardi’s in Manhattan. He was never a driver, but he sometimes fills in for his employees when it gets busy.

Maus said he’s always been a good tipper, but he doesn’t do it too often. "I don’t mind giving tips," he said, "but I pick up my own food for the most part." That's because he has seen it all, he said, deliveries that are late or cold. But he makes sure that doesn’t happen on his watch.