A so-called "prank caller" left a Cheyenne pizza shop holding 18 hot pizzas and a roughly $300 bill Friday.
So L'Osteria Mondello did the only thing that seemed right.
The whole order was sent to the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Emergency Room.
What began as a costly prank Friday afternoon turned into an unexpected meal for health-care workers after the caller who ordered the pizzas never showed up — and the phone number used to place the order apparently belonged to someone who knew nothing about it.
For L'Osteria Mondello owner Dave Agovic, the episode was particularly frustrating because those weren't the only pizzas flying through his ovens.
At almost the same time, the restaurant had another order for 12 or 13 pizzas and yet another for seven or eight.
"I had like over 40 pizzas in the same time," Agovic told Cowboy State Daily.
The kitchen was so slammed the restaurant temporarily stopped taking orders, telling callers it could be an hour and a half to two hours before they could accommodate them.
And the people ordering the 18 pizzas wanted them fast.
They told the restaurant the food was for some sort of children's wrestling club, Agovic said. His crew hustled and had the order ready in roughly 40 minutes.
Then nobody came.
Something Isn't Right
The pizzas sat above L'Osteria Mondello's ovens, where the restaurant keeps orders warm until customers arrive, but space was disappearing.
Agovic still had legitimate orders coming through the kitchen, and 18 unclaimed pizzas take up an awful lot of room.
Eventually, he called the number that had placed the order.
The person who answered said they hadn't ordered any pizzas.
That's when Agovic realized what had happened.
"I figure out it's a prank," he said.
In about 3 1/2 years running the restaurant, Agovic said something like this had happened only once.
The restaurant generally doesn't require customers to pay in advance because Agovic doesn't want to operate that way.
"We trust people," he said. "Cheyenne is a small place, and Cheyenne is the place with wonderful people. And we really try to make sure we have that trust with the local community."
Now What?
Agovic looked at the mountain of food and asked his employees what they should do with it.
The staff tossed around possibilities.
Then Agovic had an idea.
"Why don't we deliver it to the hospital?"
The crew agreed the emergency room sounded right, but he needed help getting the pizzas there.
At the same time, a former L'Osteria Mondello employee who worked for Agovic for more than 2 1/2 years stopped by to say hello.
Ryan Lemley, 18, wasn't scheduled to work, but when he saw what was happening, he volunteered.
Ryan loaded up the pizzas and headed for the ER.
"He was my hero that day," Agovic said.
A Little Piece Of Italy
For Agovic, feeding people is about considerably more than getting a pizza into a box.
He's originally from Montenegro, a small Mediterranean country in the former Yugoslavia.
He had lived in New York before coming to Cheyenne during the COVID-19 pandemic, initially expecting to stay only a couple of months.
Then he met a woman from Cheyenne and "fell in love."
She also introduced him to L'Osteria Mondello.
"Actually, this place was way better than most of the places I try pizza in New York City," he said.
He became friends with longtime owner Joe Mondello, who was looking toward retirement but worried about what would happen to the restaurant he'd spent decades building.
Eventually, Mondello asked Agovic if he'd like to take it over.
Agovic told him he couldn't afford it.
Mondello offered to finance him.
There was a condition: Don't mess with the recipes.
Today, Agovic runs the restaurant with his wife, Anika Williams.
And Joe Mondello hasn't disappeared.
Agovic said Mondello still stops in, sometimes every week or every few weeks. Occasionally, he'll make pizzas and visit with customers.
"I feel this is still his place because that's his baby," Agovic said. "He built it for last 40 years. I'm just keeping tradition, and we are just one big family."
Food Is A Lifestyle
That idea of food bringing people together is part of what Agovic brought with him from Montenegro.
In Mediterranean culture, he said, a meal isn't supposed to be something people inhale before rushing out the door.
"Food is just not quick bites," he said. "Food is more about lifestyle."
Meals stretch out. Families gather. People talk.
At L'Osteria Mondello, Agovic said he wants customers to have some version of that experience.
"Many people can't afford to go to Italy that often or ever," he said. "So they can try a little bit of Italy in our restaurant."
And rather than letting hundreds of dollars worth of food go cold because of somebody's joke, the people at L'Osteria Mondello found another table.
“They are very hardworking people and they help save a lot of lives around. And I was like, let's donate, let's reward them.”
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
