The pepperoni roll is a straight shooter. It’s exactly what it says. The meat’s salt and fat seep into the bread, staining it a wonderful greasy orange. This process is paramount to a good pepperoni roll.
Even if you’ve never had a roni roll, there’s something inherently nostalgic and innocent about it. Hot Pockets and Totino’s Pizza Rolls serve as crude cultural approximations, but neither do justice to the beauty of a traditional pepperoni roll.
People tend to point its origins toward Giuseppe Argiro, a Sicilian immigrant who worked in West Virginia coal mines before opening the Country Club Bakery in Fairmont in 1927, where he may have served the first roni roll.