 Since 1981, amid a desperate local economy, two Sewickley businessmen have been turning their Ambridge factory into the fried provolone cheese capital of the world. Dominic (Big Dee) Roppa and his brother-in-law and business partner, Jon Swan, claim they are the first and largest manufacturer of fried provolone cheese in the United States.
Their Merchant Street plant in Ambridge produces about 7,500 pounds of the tasty snack per week. According to Roppa, their Anthony’s Fried Provolone Cheese business sold 18 million zesty and tangy breaded fried cheese sticks last year – about 90 percent of them in the Pittsburgh area. This year, the two are executing plans to expand to nationwide distribution. “This has been an unlimited growth business,” Swan said. “I can see two or three more plans if things continue to grow through the next three to five years.”
Roppa claims he invented the popular finger snack in 1968 while he and his wife were cleaning the deep frier one day at his former Big Dee’s Pizza store in Moon Township. “I figured, if you can fry ice cream, you should be able to fry cheese.” At the risk of miffling his wife for “messing up the deep frier,” Roppa dipped a piece of cheese in beer, rolled it in cracker meal and dipped it into the hot oil. “It has a bland taste; but it worked,” he said.
He waited until the finger food rage began before he started taking the fried cheese idea seriously. He said the market for such snacks continues to roll toward a boom. “People would have laughed in 1968 if you would have brought that fried cheese out,” Roppa reflected. “But things have changed.”
Roppa approached Swan to form a partnership in 1981. Skeptical at first, Swan became convinced of the potential the night they tested the fried snack on a group of men in a Conway tavern. “After these 10 guys sampled the fried provolone, they started banging their fists on the bar and chanting “we want more”, Swan recollected. “I thought, oh brother, we got something here.”
They opened their original plant on First Avenue in Conway a short time later. Although the business succeeded, the original plant encountered a hurdle – producing each fried cheese stick by hand. In Conway, Anthony’s Fried Provolone Co. was only able to produce about 15,000 pounds of fried provolone per week. The new mechanized Ambridge factory easily turns out 100,000 pounds during a single shift week. “What we do here in one hour used to take us a whole day in Conway,” Swan said.
The two designed and developed much of the machinery in the 15,000 square foot plant that can produce 110 sticks in just 20 seconds. The Conway plant is still used for experimentation and producing other delicacies ranging from fried pepperoni and cheddar nuggets to the new fried artichoke hearts.
Swan and Roppa have been close friends since their childhood days in Sewickley where there were “all kinds of town character,” Swan said. “I think we had more nicknames in Sewickley than anywhere,” Roppa said.
Roppa has padded a multitude of life-long friendships with all of his old Sewickley neighborhood buddies. He was rarely missing from the sidelines during games when head football coach, Chuck Knox, coached at Buffalo. He and Knox lived across the street from each other in Sewickley and spent many of their days unloading beer trucks for the former Munizza beer distributor. University of Pittsburgh football coach, Serafino (Foge) Fazio is an other of Roppa’s old Sewickley neighborhood pals. The two used to shoot marbles together.
Swan and Roppa first met when a 6-year-old Big Dee, standing on a chair and pounding menacingly on a pinball machine in Sewickley’s former Tick Tock store, tried to panhandle a nickel from Swan as he exited the store. Years later, the two are reaping benefits from an investment of about a half-million dollars in to Anthony’s Fried Provolone Company (now known as 3 Rivers Breaded Appetizers).
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