GREENFIELD — To celebrate 60 years in business, Village Pizza hosted a block party on the Greenfield Common Sunday evening.
Running from 4 to 9 p.m, Village Pizza was joined by a multitude of local businesses, entertainers and residents to fill the blocked-off Court Square.
Hugged tightly by multicolored pop-up tents strung with balloons, the line to get pizza hugged right back, wrapping around the perimeter and pouring out toward the end. Clowns puffed out balloon animals, children dribbled balls on the sidelines, and residents of all ages enjoyed conversation in the fresh air as if it weren’t raining outside. The appreciation the community has for the local family-run shop — a generations-old Greenfield tradition — was palpable.
“It’s the only pizza place,” block party attendee Miranda Albano said, emphasizing her devotion to Village Pizza as a customer. Greenfield features several pizza shops.
Chris Balis, co-owner of Village Pizza, made it known that this love is mutual.
“The best part about (this business) is that you build relationships,” Balis said. “Look at all these people. They’re all family.”
Balis said Village Pizza has enjoyed “tremendous support by the people” ever since his father, George Balis, emigrated from Greece to the United States and began working in the business in 1960.
“Only in America, man,” Chris Balis said. “Look around you. How many different nationalities do you see? We make a nation. That’s the beauty of this nation.”
The smiling, cheese-stuffed faces of party-going locals are unlikely to contest this notion of closeness. Some would go as far as to call Village Pizza family themselves.
“We go far back,” Colrain resident Cory Young said of Chris Balis. “We were young together.”
Young said Balis and his family go above and beyond to make the community happy. She said she’d once worked at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, and as late as 3 a.m, Balis would deliver pizzas to the emergency room with no delivery charge, even though Village Pizza has never typically delivered.
On days that didn’t call for such heroics, Young said whenever she entered the shop, George Balis would come out from behind the counter when she came in, a tradition that has since continued with Chris.
Young’s daughter, Morgan, shares her mother’s love for Village Pizza.
“They’ve always been like an extended pizza family to me,” she said, regarding her experience having grown up with Village Pizza from childhood. “Chris would always know what I was up to because of my mom, and they’d remember because they care about you as a person.”
She reminisced about memories she’d made spending time in the shop as a child, such as when Balis would sneak her quarters from behind the counter to buy bouncy balls from a prize dispenser.
“They’re the greatest people,” Young said. “There are just no better.”
In celebration of the occasion, Greenfield Mayor Roxann Wedegartner officially proclaimed July 11, 2021 as “Village Pizza Day” in Greenfield.
Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-772-0261, ext. 261 or jmendoza@recorder.com.