After decades, this meat-heavy Des Moines pizza is coming back

Catch up quick: The fairgrounds grocery store is expanding.

• Owner Mark Graziano told Axios earlier this month that a new addition was also relaunching a well-known local pizza made from scratch.

The deal wasn't finalized and Graziano couldn't reveal the pizza until this week.

Flashback: The pizza dates back to the 1960s, when the Scarpino family ran a restaurant in a former two-bedroom home at 73rd Street and University Avenue in Clive that had been expanded with multiple additions for the business.

• Ken Scarpino was widely known as the host, frequently breaking into song, marching, ringing bells and honking horns, according to newspaper archives.

Yes, but: Scarpino's Pizza House's business declined after road construction altered access to the building.

• It closed in 1970, and the building was destroyed by a fire three years later.

State of play: Marty Scarpino, Ken's son and a former longtime owner of Jesse's Embers, tells Axios that he made the family pizza and gave it away a few times during the pandemic.

• He's not looking to restart the pizza house business, but he partnered with Graziano because people responded so positively to his earlier giveaways, he said.

Dig in: The signature pizza will be made with the Scarpino family's sausage recipe and a house-made sauce.

• "There's a lot of meat on it," Marty said.

What's next: The pie's modern debut will be at the Goodguys car show on July 3-5, and again at this year's fair, Aug. 13-23.