At This Georgetown Joint, They Come for the Topping in the Jug

The most popular pizza topping at Philadelphia Pizza Co. in Georgetown, especially after midnight, isn't sausage, and it isn't pineapple. It's ranch dressing.

"We go through three to four gallons on Saturday nights," says Mehmet "Matt" Kocak, 31, manager of the landmark spot the students call "Philly-P." "Half that during the summer, with so many students gone." Just a few squirts add 19 grams of fat, but even waifish Hoyas in miniskirts don't seem to mind. Customers love the stuff so much, in fact, that at least one industrial-size jug is snatched every weekend.

But Kocak shrugs off the drunken larceny. And like a patient father, he spends many weekend nights picking up grease-splotched paper plates, accepting "I love you" declarations from his "kids" in line and helping them sort through financial confusion at the register.

For students (undergrad, grad or summer schoolers arriving now), this place just off M Street (1201 34th St. NW, 202-333-0100) is every bit as much a Georgetown requirement as basketball and Economist subscriptions. A five-inch-wide slice of crisp crust here gets smothered in the expected (tomato sauce and cheese) and unexpected (ranch dressing).

The ranch tradition here started four years ago when a young woman walked in and requested the dressing Kocak usually stocked for wings and salads. "She started telling her friends, and pretty soon I had to bring out that huge jug," he says. "Everyone was asking for it."

The combination is not so far from buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing, a guilty pleasure that pizza chains picked up on before capitalizing on this one, too. After the success of the ranch dressing that Pizza Hut started serving in 2005 as part of its Dippin' Strips (pies perforated into long rectangles), the chain began offering it with other orders, too.

Part of the appeal at Philly-P is the freedom to work the ranch dispenser. Before finals one Saturday last month, a herd forms around the almighty jug. "Oh, just wait. This is nothing," Kocak says. "It's only 1:30, and we'll have to refill that a couple more times tonight."

About to order, rising junior Joe Tesoriero is sporting a blue terry cloth bathrobe. He has just come from a pajama party and, after five hours of revelry, needs his Philly fix. "Not sure if my night is over yet, but stopping at Philly-P is a tradition," Tesoriero says. He's one of an estimated 500 eaters who inhale a slice on a typical weekend night during the academic year; the total is about half that in the summer.

After six years of managing the late-night joint, with another location opening a few blocks away next month, Kocak has it running with the efficiency of a factory. His 10 staffers, mostly Turkish-born 20-something males with work permits, are assigned specific stations: one on phones, another at the register, a couple boxing up slices, a few more flipping dough and four on delivery duty.

At 2:25 a.m., the line peaks at 32, not at all unusual for this hour, and Kocak introduces me to a regular. Rising junior Molly Breen, a "Chicago Chicago girl, like from the city," she asserts, grew up on deep-dish but for the past two years has eaten here five times a week.

"Lou Malnati's is my favorite in the world, hands down," she says. Her mom even sends frozen pies from the regional chain. Now, whenever she's home and eating there, Breen requests ranch.

At Philly-P, she squirts on a Z-shaped design. Others rub it on like sunscreen. Some create clean ovals resembling gourmet buffalo mozzarella disks. But most just go for it, as if squeezing ketchup over fries.