Pizza time! The history is in the dough at Rustic, our Christmas palate cleanser

How a year-old hotspot with a decades-old recipe is gaining brand-new fans.

Everything at Rustic Pizza & Eats is made from scratch.

Other people doomscroll Instagram. Me? DoorDash — I can’t resist all that juicy local food intel. (Ordering food is a separate silo entirely.)

So when a mouthwatering pizza place I’d never seen or visited popped up — then followed me on Instagram within 24 hours — and I learned the whole thing was rooted in a decades-old, three-generation family recipe?

I suited up.

Some of you may be shaking your heads. Yes, I’m talking about Brian Brumley, who founded Spring Street Deli in 1996, and his Rustic Pizza & Eats (556 Maple Ave.), which honors the legendary Crystal Bar of Amsterdam past.

“We have a book here and a whole wall devoted to the Crystal Bar,” says Rustic owner Brian Brumley. “People come in and leave little notes, saying they met there or got engaged there.”

Rustic pizza opened in July 2024, but it’s gaining new fans — like me — after biting the bullet and jumping on DoorDash. Add a brand-new holiday catering menu (the meatballs alone) and a new Detroit-style pizza made from the hotspot’s homemade bread dough, and it’s a whole new game.

“We are doing a very good business with DoorDash,” Brian says, “and the new catering menu with my mother’s meatballs on it — they’re the best meatballs you’ve ever had — and her spaghetti sauce, ravioli and stuffed shells. We bake our own bread here, roast our own meats, make our own dressings. Everything is made from scratch.”

Brian’s mom, Clem Brumley, née Centi, whose father founded Crystal Bar, and the legendary hotspot’s third and final owner, the late Tony Centi, Brian’s cousin; historic photos at the Maple Ave. Rustic Pizza.

“My mother” is none other than 90-year-old Clem Brumley, née Centi, the one who convinced Brian to return to the restaurant biz despite being tuckered out after 27 years at Spring Street Deli. “She came up with a grand idea that I should carry on the family pizza recipe after my cousin had had it for like 30 years,” he says, since a decade had passed since the closing of Crystal Bar and the pizza was no longer available.

“So we were at a wedding and my mother said to my cousin, ‘Why don’t you let Brian have the family recipe and keep it going?’

“I’m like, ‘I don’t want to go back to the restaurant [business].’

“And of course you can’t say ‘no’ to mom, so here we are.”

(Tony taught Brian the family pizza recipe and methods to perfection before he passed away.)

A vintage Crystal Bar bumper sticker; Olde Saratoga Miniature Golf, which Brian also owns. The attraction is right next door and will open again this spring.

The Brumleys moved to Saratoga from Amsterdam when Brian was 2, but visited the fam — and Crystal Bar, which was founded by Brian’s grandfather and an institution for 67 years before closing in 2012 — often.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who come in from Amsterdam,” Brian says. “The older crowd that comes in say they’re so happy we’re here, that it’s so great we’re keeping the tradition going.”

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