By Cliff Radel
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WESTWOOD - Callers recognize Jill Scarlato by the sound of her voice. And the warmth in her heart.

"Is that you, Jill?" they ask as soon as they hear her say, "Hello, thank you for calling LaRosa's, my name is ..."

Then they tell her, "You were my favorite waitress."

Jill Scarlato has been working for LaRosa's Pizza for more than 30 years. (Jeff Swinger photo)

Before giving their order, they reminisce. Invariably, they talk about the way she had of making everyone feel special.

She knew what made LaRosa's such an important presence in Cincinnati: the pizza and the people.

Jill - "everybody calls me by my first name" - has spent nearly six years taking calls at the pizza chain's phone center. Before then, the 71-year-old west-side native waited tables for 25 years at the original LaRosa's restaurant in Westwood.

"I treated everyone like they were my dear friends," she said, "not customers."

When a pizza was ready, she didn't just plop it on the table. She made a presentation.

"Here's yours!" she'd announce and place it on the checkered tablecloth with a flourish.

Jill receives her 30-year-pin today at the chain's annual awards banquet. Officially, she started working at LaRosa's 50 years ago.

She put in a one-day stint as a hostess when her cousin and the pizza empire's founder, Buddy LaRosa, opened his first pizzeria on March 24, 1954.

"It was just a carryout with a kitchen and a counter. Buddy had us girls from the neighborhood - South Fairmount - walking around serving pizza."

After taking a 19-year break, she returned to LaRosa's. The 5-foot-1-inch ball of fire took the 9 a.m.-5 p.m. shift, but arrived early, starting at 7:30 a.m., to stock the waitress stations with napkins and silverware.

"I loved to go to work," she said. "And I had to work those hours. I was divorced with three kids to raise."

One Friday night in her 25th year at the restaurant, she went home after yet another busy day and had a heart attack. She was rushed to the hospital.

"The doctor there told me he had to pound on my chest twice to get my heart started," Jill said.

"He told me 'You must have wanted to leave this world for a reason, but I wouldn't let you.'"

Neither would LaRosa's. Mike LaRosa, the chain's president and Buddy's son, called Jill daily.

Mike told her she had a job waiting for her at the phone center - it would be easier on her feet and her heart - if she wanted to come back.

She wanted to and she did. Nearly six years later, she's still working at the phone center, taking calls and sharing memories.

"When I was a waitress, the people I'd wait on would bring me presents after they came home from vacation," Jill said.

"One little boy's mother told me she tried to get him to bring me something else. But he said, 'this is what I want to bring to Jill.' It was a soap on a rope. I took that soap home that very night and put it right in my bathroom. That little boy was so kind. That must have been 15, 20 years ago. I still remember that."

The little boy hasn't forgotten. But he's not so little anymore.

Two months ago, Jill pressed the black button on her phone by the computer keyboard in her cubicle at work.

One of 150, her cubicle is easy to spot. It's the one with the view of Walgreen's parking lot, the piece of paper covering the clock - "makes the time go faster" - and the medallions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on the computer screen.

"They watch over me while I work," Jill said.

The next call came through. Jill's "Thank you for calling LaRosa's" greeting began. And was interrupted.

"Jill? Do you remember me?" the man's voice asked.

He told her how he used to come into the restaurant with his mom, his grandma and his sister. He told her he was married with a little boy of his own.

Jill reminded the caller of how he would ask for her to wait on his family.

"When they would go out to eat, they didn't say, 'Let's go to LaRosa's,'" she recalled. "They'd say: 'Let's go to Jill's place.'"

The man asked Jill if she remembered anything else about him.

She said she did. She remembered the soap on a rope.

The caller was astonished. Jill was surprised people still remember her.

"That's the craziest thing," she said.

She thinks they remember because of her voice.

"Oh, God," she groaned. "I've got a voice all of my own."

Jill speaks with a vibrant, staccato accent embraced by many Italian-Americans growing up in South Fairmount and speaking two languages.

Her voice tones could be termed husky.

"That comes from an operation I had many, many years ago on a tumor on my thyroid," she said.

"That operation deepened my voice - some people when they call in their order tell me, 'Thank you, sir.' I used to sing a lot. Since the operation, I can't carry a tune."

There's another reason Jill is so fondly remembered. It has nothing to do with her voice and everything to do with how she treats people.

"I don't have many talents," she said. "But I do love to talk with people. It makes you feel so darned good."

When Jill receives her 30-year pin today, she knows people will wonder when she's going to retire.

She's thought about never taking another order for a medium pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.

"But I don't know what I would do," she said, "if I didn't go to work."

Better yet, what would LaRosa's do without her?

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E-mail cradel@enquirer.com