PARMA, Ohio -- Popular pizzeria Marsella’s Pizza marks its 50th anniversary of serving pies to Parma residents.

“We’re one of the last standing pizza joints,” owner Billy Smith said.

“A lot of our customers who came here even as little kids thank me for keeping it going because they grew up on it. Marsella’s is their pizza.”

That’s also true for Smith, a Parma resident and 1985 Valley Forge High School graduate who also has quite a history with the pizza shop located at 7425 York Road.

As a kid, he worked for Bill and Tess Marsella, who originally opened the business in 1975.

“I got one of my first jobs with them at like 12 or 13 years old, making pizza boxes in the back room for 2 cents a box,” he said. “I was their first dough boy at their second store on Stumph Road at the age of

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