What this country needs is a good $1.99 pizza.

And, by jove, we’ve got just the ticket right here in the Lakes Region at The Grotto on Route 302 in Windham. The savvy owner of The Grotto sells a really tasty 7-inch pizza with two toppings for a measly $1.99. Unbelievable.

No, this isn’t an advertisement for The Grotto, formerly Mangino’s Sandwich Shop in North Windham. I don’t even know the owner’s name. But I do find it fascinating that a pizza shop has priced their product so low.

You’ve no doubt heard the saying, “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.” I went to the University of Rhode Island, the student-run newspaper of which is titled The Good 5A?¢ Cigar, or The Cigar for short, as in, “Did you see that article exposing the dean of the anthropology department in The Cigar today?”

Therefore, all through my college years, I often thought about why someone would say something like, “What this country needs is a really good 5A?¢ cigar?” I really couldn’t figure it out. Until a couple months ago when I saw the sign in front of The Grotto, beckoning me to stop and try their $1.99 two-topping, 7-inch pizza.

According to an article in the April 18, 2005 edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine, the cigar saying came from the lips of U.S. Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall, who was lamenting the exorbitant price of cigars post-World War II. Cigars had been selling for 10 cents following the war, but five cents, Marshall famously opined, was what they should have been worth, as they had been before the war.

Fast forward 60 or so years. We’re back in the same position where things cost too much for the average guy. Who couldn’t use a good $5,000 car? Or a good $200 washing machine? And getting back to our pizza example, who would have believed pizza would cost $20 for a large. Try getting out of Ricetta’s for less than that. It ain’t happening. I went into the Falmouth branch last summer to get a small, 3-topping pizza and it cost me $17. That was crazy. I admit, the pizza was scrumptious. But still, $17 is way too much.

The Grotto, on the other hand, is bucking the trend. The pizza is delicious, and it costs a fraction of other pizza places. How can they do it? Why are they doing it? It’s an economics lesson right in our own backyard.

How they can do it is more easily answered. Pizza doesn’t cost too much to produce. Dough and sauce are worth pennies. Cheese is worth a little more. And the veggies and meat toppings probably cost the most. Still, if it costs a buck to produce a 7-inch pizza (including overhead), I’d be surprised.

So, the “why” is more intriguing. I’m thinking the owner obviously wants to create customer loyalty. He’s probably thinking if we like the $1.99 personal-sized pizza for lunch, we’ll probably go back to The Grotto when family pizza night or a big party rolls around. Or, he might be shooting for quantity. If 300 people buy a $1.99 pizza during the day, that’s a lot of dough, figuratively and literally.

But I think there’s one other factor involved. On my third or fourth visit, still dumbfounded that I could buy a decent-sized pizza for $1.99, I asked the owner of The Grotto how long the promotion would run. He said it wasn’t a promotion and that it would always be on the menu. I was amazed. (Still am, obviously.) So, I’m left wondering: Maybe this guy just likes to give Lakes Region folks a good deal for their hard-earned money?

Bigger companies could learn a lesson from The Grotto’s business plan. Offer the public a good deal, and you will be rewarded. That’s all we really want. We want a decent product – be they cigars, pizzas or cars – for a reasonable price. You sell us something of quality, and you’ll have a customer for life.

Personally, I almost feel bad about only paying $1.99 for a pizza, so I usually grab a soda just to feel better. Similarly, if a car company offered me a $5,000 car, I’d feel obligated to bring it back for oil changes and any other work it needed for as long as I owned it.

Companies have gotten away from this line of thinking. Quality used to be the name of the game when times were tight. Then the economy soared and items got cheaper, both in terms of price and craftsmanship. (Ever heard of Wal-Mart?) But now that the economy is tightening up again, here’s hoping more Grotto-esque enterprises appear, that give us a good product for our money.

John Balentine, of Windham, is a former editor of the Lakes Region Weekly.