LaRosa’s is a pizza restaurant with a memorable phone number, spaghetti-a-plenty on Monday nights and a 25 percent share of Cincinnati’s pizza market. But it’s more than that. It’s part of the city, like hills and baseball. Sixty-five years ago, on March 24, Buddy LaRosa opened the West Side pizzeria that eventually became a 64-location chain and city icon.

How did LaRosa’s become so entwined with the hearts and appetites of a whole city? Over a couple of interviews recently, I tried to get Buddy, who’s turning 90 next year, to answer that question.  He didn’t answer in a way that sums it up, exactly. Buddy just kept telling stories.