Everyone has a favorite pizza place, but if you love the doughy, cheesy, sweet-sauced, charred-pepperoni pie that’s typical in the 716, one way or another, you can trace the pizza you love back to the Bocce Club on Hickory Street near Eagle in the 1940s.

While pizza was already a popular dish in the Italian sections of Buffalo, especially on the West Side, only a small handful of pizza makers saw their product transcend the neighborhood bakery or restaurant to form Western New York’s taste for what has become one of the quintessential American dishes.