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CHELMSFORD -- It's a very different kind of love story.
Rich Carroll would walk across the country for it, swim across an ocean, even "fly to the moon." If a doctor told Carroll that his days were numbered, it would be his last request.
"I'm not kidding," he says.
All that for a slice of pizza?
You better believe it.
Tony and Ann Privitera closed up their Tyngsboro Road pizzeria four years ago, but their pie's cult status still reaches a fever pitch throughout Greater Lowell and beyond. Diehard fans continue to lament the loss online.
Cyberspace has created a place for Tony and Ann's addicts to console each other. A place where they can share childhood memories about "the pizza you needed to eat with a spoon."
"I replaced my ex-wife," Carroll says. "But there's no replacing a Tony and Ann's pizza. It's something you can't understand unless you really love it."
A recent online phenomenon has prompted stomachs to rumble and hearts to flutter all over again: www.tonyandannspizza.com.
The new Web site, featuring music and old photographs of the North Chelmsford eatery, also has a customer survey.
One question asks where you'd like to see a new Tony and Ann's.
"The family has always left the door open," says John Vitale, Tony and Ann's grandson.
The Web site does say, "we'll see you soon," but just like the pizza's secret sauce recipe, Vitale is not letting the cat out of the bag.
But Tony and Ann's family has been keeping a watchful eye on the Internet postings.
"We're overwhelmed by the responses," Vitale says. "It's humbling, after four years, the fact that so many are still honoring the pizza."
What makes a pizza so special?
It's a common theme binding three generations together, Vitale says.
"We were serving grandkids whose parents came, and their parents came and their grandparents came," he says. "We saw families grow up."
Before there was pizza, Tony and Ann ran an ice cream stand on Princeton Street. Then Tony got a second-hand oven. And the magic happened.
The first sign appeared on Tyngsboro Road in 1960, when the former ice cream stand moved. For 50 years, the restaurant was always run by family.
"We were babies, came from the hospital and went right to the pizza shop," Vitale laughs. "It was our second home for all those years."
The shop closed for a couple months every winter, reopening every Valentine's Day.
"It was an institution," says John Lehto, owner of Village Variety in Vinal Square. "That sauce was (Tony's) baby. He's got the big, deep dark secret hidden away."
Tony Privitera passed away in 1999. Ann kept the store running for three more years with the help of family. Although the building was sold in December 2002 -- it's now the China Mountain restaurant -- the family always said they'd return.
The pizza shop's original phone number, 978-251-3311, has never been disconnected.
Jim Quinn patiently waits.
"Haven't had pizza since," says Quinn, 60.
Quinn stockpiled his freezer with frozen pizzas to get him through the winter. You'd have to make them stretch out, he says.
Tony and Ann's stepped into the national spotlight when Chelmsford native Lance Wilder, also the background designer for The Simpsons, included the restaurant in the series' backdrop.
"That was one of Tony's proudest moments," Vitale says. "The fact that the red and white storefront made it to a national, even worldwide, level meant so much to him."
The store closed in 2002. Wilder told a Sun reporter that "he was bummed out," and was trying hard to stretch out his dozen frozen Tony and Ann's pizzas.
"What else can you say except that it was the best," says a Tony and Ann's fan and Chelmsford resident nicknamed "Mouse." "It was pretty greasy, you didn't have to chew a lot because it just slid right down the back of your throat."
Some say it was a lot of brown sugar that made the sauce so sweet. But Vitale's lips are sealed when it comes to any questions about the secret sauce recipe. He is quick to say that any rumors floating around that Tony bought the recipe are "just not true." It was a labor of love that Tony made from scratch.
To find out when Tony and Ann's starts making pizzas again, well, you'll just have to keep logging onto tonyandannspizza.com.
Until then, Carroll will continue to sing praises to his one true love.
"When the moon hits your eye like a big Tony and Ann's pizza pie, that's amore," he says.