East Side resident Pat Lean has been eating at Pizza Shuttle since it opened in 1985. Although she's dined there at least once a week for 20 years and is recognized by the Shuttle's owners and staff, Lean wanted to make her loyalty and patronage a little more permanent.
In the summer of 2005 Lean had a six-inch drawing of the Pizza Shuttle logo tattooed onto her left forearm. It is a logo, she says, that she wears with pride.
"It's my favorite pizza in Milwaukee, for sure," says Leon, who is known for ordering her usual 14-inch thin crust pizza with grilled chicken, mushrooms and double garlic and a Miller Lite.
Lean says the idea for the tattoo came to her as she was sitting in Pizza Shuttle's dining room. She was looking at the sign outside and thought, "That would make a great tattoo."
Pizza Shuttle co-owner Mark Gold says that Lean approached him with the idea that day. "I thought it was a cool idea, and I told her that if she really wanted it I would pay for it."
Shortly after, Lean went to Brady Street's Bodyworks tattoo shop and got the $150 logo rendition permanently drawn on her arm.
Although it is far from her first tattoo -- being a sports fan, she also dons an NFL logo, a Green Bay Packers logo, among others -- she says this is the first ink job she's gotten for free.
"It worked out really well and I think it looks great," says Gold. "I was very touched that a customer felt so strongly about Pizza Shuttle that she wanted to get the tattoo."
To show his appreciation for her support, Gold gave Lean a year's worth of free Pizza Shuttle pizza.
Lean is an apartment manager who has lived on the East Side for the last 34 years. She says she remembers when Pizza Shuttle opened in 1985 in a little storefront space across the street from where it is now.
"There was nowhere to sit down and eat in the original location, but I could see them tossing the dough through the window. A couple years later they moved across the street and I started coming all the time."
A Milwaukee lover, Lean says that she now also sports a Harley Davidson logo tattoo and is considering getting a Miller Brewing Company one, as well.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
