Fitz Willys barbecue restaurant emphasizes family, community and good food

The staff members of Fitz Willys Kitchen and Catering have a few standards they strive to meet every day: The restaurant is clean; everyone who walks through the door is greeted with a smile; and the food is fresh, consistent and served quickly.

These seem like pretty standard restaurant practices. However, the family-owned barbecue joint in Penn Hills near the Plum border has seen sales skyrocket since its May grand opening with only three consistent staff members to field them.

Owner Dave Orendi, 63, is living his dream. Orendi spent years in the kitchen with his daughters crafting new recipes and thinking of possible names for his future restaurant.

“This is my dad’s dream job,” said his daughter, Madison Orendi, 26.

Madison helps her father and mother, Lori, at Fitz Willys when she’s off from her job at Point Pleasant assisted living facility in North Versailles. She helps to baste the meats — a practice she calls painting — handing out orders and folding boxes. Two family friends come in a few mornings a week to help with prep work while Orendi handles the cooking and Lori takes orders.

“It can get really busy,” Lori said. “Especially when we have a catering event, walk-ins and phone orders.”

Lori said despite how busy it gets in the restaurant, she has been touched time and time again at how kind and patient customers have been.

Orendi retired from the roofing industry in October and signed the lease of a building that used to serve as a laundromat at 2514B Leechburg Road a month later. Lori, his wife, also 63, had retired from cleaning homes years earlier and was acting as Madison’s aide. He, Madison and Lori spent six months fixing up the place to create a takeout restaurant — a restaurant that Orendi had been dreaming of starting for years.

“I’ve really wanted to get into (the restaurant business) for a long time, but I’ve never had the opportunity,” Orendi said.

The menu is filled with homemade food that’s made fresh every day.

“The health inspector asked where the microwave was, and I said, ‘We don’t have one,’ ” Orendi said. “I don’t want that in here because I don’t use one. If the food isn’t fresh, we don’t serve it.”

The eatery offers “lunch boxes” which includes an entree and an option of two sides or a large serving of fries. There are daily specials, the most popular dish being Friday’s ribs. Orendi said people often call on Monday to reserve their order for Friday.

“We did 48 orders of ribs (on July 5),” Orendi said. “Our first week, we only did 14. We keep adding every week. The orders keep going up and people keep coming in. We’ve got so many repeat customers — it’s become like a family.”

He said he picks up his meat supply each morning and immediately takes it to the Fitz Willys smoker. He doesn’t have time to store some of the more popular cuts because of the amount of orders they get each day. It takes about 14 hours to cook the brisket and eight hours to make his pulled pork, the two most popular items on the menu.

“We wanted to be everything but pizza and hoagies,” Orendi said. “We want to be able to offer food that would remind you of when you were a kid. That’s what we’re trying to do with our food.”

Orendi and his older daughter, Kayla, created a base sauce to which they add other flavors, including fresh fruit. They’ve created barbecue sauces with peaches, pineapples, mangos and strawberries. When making the menu, Orendi decided to include items not commonly found in the area, including onion cakes and city chicken.

“We like being a place that you can’t find everywhere,” Orendi said.

While the Orendis were setting everything up for their restaurant, they wanted to include the community as much as possible. Their shirts were made at a local printing shop and their logo was produced by a local graphic designer.

The logo was designed with great attention to detail. Fitz Willy is a pig “with some attitude.” He has an American flag eye patch over his left eye because Orendi is blind in his left eye and used to wear an eye patch before getting a glass eye.

The American flag print on the patch is to represent the family’s appreciation for first responders and men and women in the service. To finish off his look, the pig wears a bandanna around his neck made from a picnic blanket because the Orendis serve barbecue, a picnic dinner staple.

They also named food items after some of their friends, including Ralph’s Favorite Pulled Pork and Tara’s Famous Pasta Salad.

“The response we’ve gotten from the community is overwhelming,” Orendi said. “So many people that come in are so patient and willing to try new things.”

Each month, the tips that the restaurant earns are dedicated to a different charity. The tips from May were given to the Special Olympics. June’s tips were donated to Jamie’s Dream Team, an organization that sent Madison, who has Down syndrome, and her family on a trip to Disney. July’s tips are being donated to disabled veterans.