WEST MILFORD The popular Utopia Deli on Warwick Turnpike celebrates its tenth birthday this month. Owners Sue Costanza and Donald Dickert are proud of their achievements in developing their business over the past decade and in particular the distinct family atmosphere they have created within the venture among both staff and customers. The deli opened for business on Feb. 11, 1997. The adjoining Suzy’s Tomato Pizzeria, also owned by Costanza and Dickert, opened a little under three years later. “We have built the business over the past ten years,” said Costanza, “We haven’t changed too much in that time but we have been able to fine tune things.” The deli serves hot and cold food, as well as gallons of coffee 365 days a year, with everything fresh-baked and 99 percent of prepared food home made. They never use any trans-fat in their cooking. Residents of Upper Greenwood Lake will be familiar with Utopia but people do come from far and wide to sample the goods. Costanza said, “We see a lot of customers from out of town come to our store because they say they’ve heard good things about us; people who come to West Milford to fish or visit the local festivals in town or in Warwick.” Both Costanza and Dickert emphasize the friendly atmosphere created in the deli and the pizzeria and give much of the credit for that to their staff and clientele. Dickert said, “The most important thing to us is that we have developed a great relationship with our customers and our employees. We have a fantastic manager in Ruth Russo who’s been with us for nine years. The kids we hire to work for us are also wonderful; they’re the cream of the crop. The staff here definitely becomes part of our family.” As a perfect example of this special bond between those in front and behind the counters, Costanza highlights charitable efforts carried out recently: “Last summer two of the kids came with us on the New York City Avon Breast Cancer Walk. We called ourselves Team Utopia’ and I had set us a target of raising $2500 from all our efforts but we actually raised $6600. “That figure includes $1000 raised by our customers from dropping their change into cans we had left out. I am so grateful to everyone who donated; it’s this kind of relationship that has developed over the ten years between our customers and the deli.” Any store with a high volume of customers will no doubt get its share of funny stories and Utopia is no different. Dickert said, “We do get telephone orders from customers for our six-foot sub sandwiches. When they pull up in their compact car I have a tough time trying to fit the whole sandwich in. It’s usually over the shoulder of the passenger and sometimes we think we might have to strap it to the roof; we’ve always got it in the car though.” One concern both owners have, however, is for the intersection leading into their deli. The entrance runs alongside fast moving traffic on Warwick Turnpike and directly opposite vehicles exiting Lakeshore Drive. Several accidents have occurred at this spot and Costanza is hoping something can be done to change the entrance before anyone else gets hurt. Costanza said, “It’s very dangerous and there have been too many accidents there. We have asked the township to help out with the problem but so far nothing has changed. It does put some customers off from coming here and it does hinder our business.” The exterior of the building which contains both Utopia and Suzy’s is amazing. Costanza and Dickert are hugely impressed by their business home and the man responsible for constructing it. Costanza said, “I think a lot of credit goes to our landlord, Glenn Slater. He built a beautiful building here and was really very helpful to us when we started up. It’s not often you hear tenants praising their landlord but Glenn has been great to us.” A few changes to the menu might appear soon at Utopia but customers needn’t worry, “We want to keep doing what we’re doing,” said Costanza, “We live in a very beautiful area and we want to continue working and living here. We are going to introduce some new healthier foods to our menu but, of course, we’ll always have what people want on the menu.”