Amid nor’easter, business as usual at Bayville pizzeria

Across the street from Oyster Bay Town-owned Ransom Beach in Bayville, where Wednesday evening's high tide and nor'easter conditions collided to send water splashing more than 20 feet high over the seawall and crashing onto the parking lot, it was business as usual at Ralph's Pizza.

Couples shared pies and salads. Customers came in to pick up boxes of pizza for takeout. Two little girls, however, complained that the wind tunnel created by the storm conditions made it difficult to pull open the door.

Outside, the high winds howled and a mix of rain and snow falling horizontally pounded the building.

Inside, brother-and-sister team Jerry Camera and Nancy Patacca, owners of Ralph's, prepared food orders and shouted jovially to customers when their meals were ready.

There would be no early closing time Wednesday and the generator was at the ready should power go out again, Nancy Patacca, 67, said. There was absolutely no reason to worry, she said.

"Honey, we've been here for 52 years. We've been through everything," she said. "Customers are depending on us."

Ralph's had donated meals in the wake of superstorm Sandy to displaced residents staying at the makeshift shelter at Locust Valley High School.

"It's a small community," Nancy Patacca said. "We've got to stick together."

- EMILY NGO