Pizza shop features a touch of Greek

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

	Special to the Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY Margarete 'Maggie' Samara answers a call at Margherita Pizzeria in Dagsboro.

She said she wasn’t sure how the locals would react to an Italian/Greek combo, but she has been pleasantly surprised.

Naturally, pizza continues to headline.

Margherita Pizzeria has the traditional pie in regular or thin crust, plus a dozen specialty varieties and four types of white pizza.

However, Samara has added topping choices like feta cheese, zucchini and eggplant, plus gyros (lamb or chicken) and souvlaki (marinated beef).

“We sell a lot of Greek food,” she pointed out.

Or, for patrons who want to stick with Italian but have already filled their pizza quota for the week, they offer various pasta dishes, including homemade four-layer lasagna (a full pound per portion).

“Basically, everything’s made here — the meatballs, the sauce (16 ingredients), the dough — that’s all me,” Samara stated.

She said she typically comes in at 8:30 a.m. to start getting the pizza dough ready for open doors at 11 a.m. (noon on Sundays).

According to Samara, she spends long hours at the shop everyday. However, she added, “I love this business. I love dealing with the customers — a lot of funny things happen in pizza shops, and the customers keep me going.”

She said her first year at Margherita Pizzeria had gone even better than anticipated, and this year looked to be even better.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Samara scouted the Dagsboro pizza joint a couple years back and decided to make a move.

She and her husband, Majed, have a travel agency in Philadelphia, and he has stayed behind to run things during the week.

Samara said the separation could be hard sometimes, but they did get to see each other on weekends.

“We get along really well — we probably talk 15 to 20 times a day,” she said. “The girls get sick of answering the phone, because they know it’s him.”

When they bought the place, they knew they’d have to put some work into it, and they have.

Leaky deli cases necessitated repairs to the subfloor, but a redesign was in order anyway.

“They had five different kinds of floors — rug, linoleum, black and white tile, green tile — it was crazy,” Samara recalled.

She credited her husband for doing the floor and counter work. Meanwhile, she gathered her kitchen equipment in Philadelphia — acquiring most of it at auctions, or second-hand, from friends who were buying new equipment and were willing to pass it on.

Prior to the move, Samara had been working with Laki Psekaris of Gusto Pizza (South 22nd Street).

She said he’d passed on many recipes, and generally been a great help to the new venture.

“Laki’s helped me a lot here,” she said. “I don’t think we could have made it without him.”

Two years later, Margherita Pizzeria is thriving, and Samara is expanding into the space next door. She said she eventually hopes to set up an ice cream and dessert counter there, and work her way up to a little more sit-down dining.

Presently, business is 80 percent delivery. Samara’s drivers make the rounds between Millsboro, Selbyville and Ocean View.

Located right at 407 Main Street, downtown Dagsboro, the shop is hard to miss. The little parking lot in front fills up quickly, but there’s more parking in back, and Margherita Pizzeria is open for business seven days a week.

For pickup or delivery, call (302) 732-9106.