First things first. It's pronounced Peek-uhs, not Pike-uhs as I spent most of yesterday doing.
Yeah, John Travolta has nothing on me when it comes to butchering names.
What can I say, I'm not from Delco. I've never tasted this Upper Darby delight.
I'm also not much of a night person anymore. Most nights it's about all I can do to drive home, mumble a hello to my wife, swallow something and then collapse into bed.
I can't tell you the last time I saw the 'Tonight' Show. Forget Jimmy Fallon. I'm not even sure we're talking Jay Leno here. We might have to go back to the Johnny Carson Era.
But I've been told I have a pretty good sense for news.
So when I got in the office Tuesday morning and flipped on the morning news on TV, my ears perked up when the NBC-10 morning team were talking about what happened the night before on Fallon's new version of the 'Tonight' show.
Tina Fey was the guest. She is, of course, a famous Upper Darby native. So is one of the writers on Fallon's show.
So they cooked up this plan to have some of Fey's favorite pizza delivered when she appeared on the show.
That's how Pica's hit the headlines. After all, it's not every day a neighborhood eatery plays a starring role on a national TV stage.
Tim Logue has all the details of the Pica family's moment in the sun.
But what happened yesterday also reinforced for me the new way we often deliver news to our readers.
After I heard the piece, I put together a short story and posted it on our website. As I usuallly do, I also Tweeted the story and put up a link on our Facebook page.
I didn't think much of it after that. Until I started to notice what was happening with my Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The story was exploding.
By 10 a.m. yesterday, the Facebook post had been viewed more than 50,000 times. Right now the total is more than 79,000.
These are the protcols we now have in place when it comes to breaking news.
Is the story about Pica's the most important thing that happened in Delaware County yesterday. Probably not. Our front page today is devoted to a great photo from staff photographer Eric Hartline of a Vietnam vet waving a U.S. flag as the USS Somerset sails down the Delaware past Marcus Hook.
But it's clear that the Pica's story connected with our readers.
The comments on the story and the Facebook posting morphed into a community debate about the best pizza in Delaware County. In fact, we're going to develop that into an upcoming 'Live From the Newsroom' as we seek out the best pie in Delco.
For now, I'm happy that a family operation got a moment in the national spotlight. And that they technology that I so often lament was able to help us cover it.
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