Challenge of eating a six-pound calzone in less than 45 minutes has yet to be conquered
Published in the April 2-15, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Jim Shuster, Dutchman’s Pizza owner, dresses a pie in his Morgan Hill restaurant. The Morgan Hill restaurant has been open for three years.
If you love calzones, Morgan Hill’s Dutchman’s Pizza restaurant has the ultimate chow-down challenge for you. If you can consume its six-pound calzone in less than 45 minutes, you not only don’t have to pay the $50 bill for the mammoth meal, you get a Dutchman’s T-shirt and your photo and name goes up on a wall in the restaurant forever documenting the accomplishment.
“We’ve had a lot of people who have come very close,” said the restaurant’s owner Jim Shuster, adding that although it’s a lot of fun to watch people stuff the tasty turnover-like pizza into their mouth, no diner has yet to conquer the calzone.
Dutchman’s got its start on March 4, 1981 in Gilroy and became a popular family-friendly restaurant in Garlic City during the ensuing three decades. Shuster bought the Gilroy store a decade ago. From his savings that came from running that business, he opened in May 2011 his restaurant in Morgan Hill, the community where he has made his home since 1971.
Dutchman’s Morgan Hill has grown during the past three years as a place where friends and family get together for a slice of pizza pie, salad, and appetizers.
Courteous and kind customer service is a big reason so many patrons keep coming back to Dutchman’s, Shuster said.
“My philosophy is in how we treat each customer, and it’s instilled into each one of the employees,” he said. “The bottom line is that we want to treat people like this is their home. When they come in here, this is their house. When they walk through the door, we want them to be treated as if they just got home. Welcome home.”
With both Dutchman’s restaurants, Shuster also believes in giving back to each South Valley community by supporting a number of nonprofit organizations. Two years ago, he received recognition for providing half a million dollars to Gilroy organizations over the years from his restaurant fund-raising efforts.
“We let our customer and people know that a portion of their sales always goes back to the community,” he said. “I worked the Gilroy Garlic Festival almost since it was born, and so I learned a lot about how money moves within the community. So we do a lot of fund-raising. There’s not a month where we don’t do at least two fundraisers — for schools, churches, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the YMCA — everybody — and also the local sports teams. We give back to the community.”
His food philosophy in making pizza and other menu items is to make sure each pizza and other dish includes fresh, high-quality ingredients – and Shuster puts a priority on using local sources. Dutchman’s uses meats from Silva Sausage Company, based in Gilroy, as well as vegetables and mushrooms from San Martin.
Shuster also likes to innovate new ideas for dishes to try on his customers. He once made a Mexican-style Tostada Pizza that used re-fried beans and other ingredients found on tostadas.
His passion for cooking comes from the Italian heritage on his mothers side, and he began learning the culinary craft at an early age.
“My grandmother would gather all the kids in the kitchen and we’d learn about the art of cooking,” he said. “We wouldn’t cook with recipes, you cook with what’s in your head. You learn that this will taste good because you know what it tastes like. I didn’t go to any (cooking) schools. The passion of cooking for me is more as an art.”
DUTCHMAN’S PIZZA
Location: 16375 Monterey St.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
Contact: (408) 776-9866 or dutchmanspizza.com
