Francacello’s is found at the edge of town. It teeters between the land of roaming taxis where trench coats race each other to the entrances of extravagant glass buildings, and the bumpier region where petrol-powered seats have big round wheels and drive slowly down motorways to try to slow down the trench coats. A space between that bridges these two realms yet shares nothing in common. Like a zipper between denim and cellophane. At Francacello’s. one black door bows at its cross beam as if the entire place is a Cheshire cat in a cryogenic freeze. The Cheshire caricature would be well complemented with a pair of hungry-eyed windows, but not a window is to be found on the outside or the inside. Francacello himself had told the architectures that once they built the restaurant, if he found even the resemblance of a window he would light the place up like a cube of gasoline. Francello scoured surfaces for two days after the construction to find even a photonic trace of light. Not one light ray gave away the architecture’s watertight work. A goldfish would claim squatters rights inside if it could get inside.

Francacello serves three shapes of pizza. Always has, always will. In fact it is written on a piece of parchment that Francacello’s can only ever serve these three shapes of pizza even in the unlikely event that the final member of the Francacello family passes on. The parchment that Francacello penned his famous tenets on is in the basement of the building and is encased in a cryogenic chamber. At the top of the parchment is scrawled, “Ideas for How to Start a Successful Pizza Cafe – 03/06/25.” Francacello wrote his ideas down on the third day in June in the year twenty twenty-five. Fifty-thousand and eight was the number of dollars that Francacello owed the US tax agency that year. Fifteen was the number of ideas that Francacello wrote on that fateful piece of tree skin. Two was the number of ideas that were promoted to the title of The Francacello Tenets.

The second tenet was that only persons with the surname Francacello could touch, smell, look-at, taste, draw, or wonder about Francacello’s pizza. This tenet is especially famous for having caused an influx in the number of applications to the Bureau d’Identity, also known more commonly as the place where you can get someone to use a magical eraser to scratch out whatever second word your mother and father harnessed to your name, and scribble in something completely different. Francacello was the most popular baby name for an entire decade, the streak being broken when a one-year fad began which involved naming children “null null” to exploit bugs in the child taxation software. Francacello’s was then the most popular baby name for another forty years. In the town where Francacello was born, seniority is represented by the prefix “Fr.” The most senior individuals who have pledged their many living years upholding the two tenets of Francacello are known to have names such as, Francacello Francacello Francacello, or even Francacello Francacello Francacello Francacello Francacello Francacello, generally abbreviated as Fr. Fr. Fr. Fr. Fr. Francacello.

Francacello’s three shapes of pizza – the only three shapes that can be served (always has, always will) – are a circle, a square, and a trib. Two of those shapes most people will be familiar with, but the third seems absurd to virgins of the Francacello way. A circle is an area enclosed by all points equidistant from a given point. When a customer purchases a slice of Francacello’s they are given three things. The first is a napkin, who’s intended use is to dab up any loose sauces or to push against one’s lips at the end of the meal (even if there is no sauce on either lip to dab) to declare one has finished eating. The second is a slice of pizza stacked with toppings galore and lots of loose sauces. After the customer has been given these two items – the pizza cozily nestled inside the napkin like a fresh hot newborn baby covered in loose sauces – the third item is given. It comes not in the form of the tactile, but through the controlled reverberations of air around the customer’s ear. A phrase of grace at the galactic table of Francacello. The customer is given these words from the mouth of the Francacello who parted with the pizza slice: always has, always will.