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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
When Kevin Berro is asked what the secret is to making a good pizza, he replies with one word - fresh.

Kevin Berro, the owner of Berro's Pizzeria in Fort Smith, displays a pizza fresh from the oven. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

"That's it. The only secret," said the owner and pizza maker at Berro's Pizzeria in Fort Smith.

"You can get canned pizza sauce, which will make life a lot easier. I don't do that," he noted. "You can get frozen dough. I don't do that. The only thing that I get frozen basically is the pepperoni, the shrimp, some pizza toppings. But the mushrooms, all the vegetables, everything is fresh. The cheese is never frozen. "

Berro is proud of the pizza at his restaurant.

"It is very good," he said. "I'm not just saying that because I make it. It is absolutely very good. It's excellent. I mean I like pizza, my kids like pizza."

Berro noted that earlier this month he was driving from Edmonton and stopped at Peace River, where he ordered a pizza.

"I was disappointed," he said, noting he could see the meat and the pizza sauce through the cheese.

That is not something that happens at Berro's restaurant.

"We give quantities. We don't just sprinkle a little bit," he said. "Everything is good. We hardly, hardly ever sell extra cheese on our pizzas. It has to have everything on it, not just a little of this and a little of that."

Berro is known for his quality pizza even outside of Fort Smith.

"I have people that come here from Hay River and buy pizza on a regular basis," he noted.

In fact, a couple of customers from Hay River have bought pans from him and they bring them back and forth, he said. "I make them the pizza and they cook it at home, and I have a couple of customers that take it cooked."

Berro, 36, has been making pizzas in Fort Smith for seven years.

However, he learned how to make pizza when he was 14 years old when he first came to Canada from his native Lebanon and worked at his uncle's restaurant in Morinville, Alta.

"That's the first time I ever made a pizza," he said.

At Berro's Pizzeria, he is one of two pizza makers, although the other one is leaving soon.

"I'm training somebody right now, but putting the pizzas together is not very hard," Berro said. "The hard part is making the dough and the sauces."

His own personal satisfaction with pizza comes from the finished product.

"It's the enjoyment part," he said. "It's not the prepping and the work that goes into it. It's the first bite that you take."

Berro said his pizzeria creates many kinds of pizzas.

"We probably make like 25 different ones, but it's endless" he said. "You can have a hundred combinations of pizzas."

The most popular with customers is the house special - which features a little bit of everything, including a couple of types of meats, vegetables, shrimp, olives, pineapple, pepperoni, green pepper, onion and mushroom - and a donair pizza.

Berro said people enjoy pizza because of the combination of taste and convenience.

"It's not something that you can do at home right away," he said. "And, up North, it would cost you twice as much to make it at home."

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