May 15, 2025 By Brad Hundt 2 min read

Lots of homes and businesses took a pounding from the storms that came roaring through the region April 29.

Power was out for hours or days, trees were uprooted, roofs were damaged and some roads were rendered impassable.

But perhaps no other business in Washington County took a greater beating than Panhandle Food Sales, which sits alongside Route 18 in Slovan. In the aftermath of the late afternoon storm, Panhandle Food Sales proprietor Bill Dugas received a phone call from a neighbor.

“I think you ought to come down,” the neighbor told Dugas, who lives just up a hill from the business that has been in his family for more than half a century.

When he got there, Dugas found garage doors had been blasted out and, worst of all, “the wind took the roof right off the building,” he explained.

In the two weeks since, Dugas said they are still trying to determine the dollar amount of the damage and how to proceed fixing it. In the meantime, Panhandle Food Sales, which sells Billy Boy’s Pizza in both frozen form and in kits to grocery stores, is still operating, but on a limited basis, Dugas said. All the stock that was in freezers was in good shape, “so we didn’t lose any of that,” he said.

There’s no dollar estimate yet on how much repairing the damage will cost, or a timeline on when the building will be fully fixed. The building has been the home of Panhandle Food Sales since 1974, and an addition was placed on the structure in 1980.

Friends and neighbors called after the storm, Dugas said, offering to help clean up, “but you have to be careful because you don’t want someone to get hurt.”

The Dugas family entered the pizza business in 1966 when Dugas’ father, Bill Dugas Sr., decided to strike out on his own after being a distributor for DeCarlo’s Pizza. Working in the basement of his Burgettstown home, he created Duggie’s Gold Label pizza, and then launched Billy Boy’s Pizza. Throughout its life, it has sold other products, including pierogies, ravioli and spaghetti.