NASHUA – Maria Borino was 25 years old and five months pregnant when she snowplowed streets one winter for a Lexington, Mass., company.
“Guys used to say, ‘I make so much an hour,’ and I wanted to do it, but they’d said ‘Girls can’t plow,’ ” Borino said. “Not only was I the best plow person they had – they gave me a brand new truck with a brand new plow on it.”
Seventeen years later, Borino still hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to push snow for 24 hours straight or more – on little sleep and nowhere to find food but a few fast-food restaurants and convenience stores that stayed open during blizzards.
“There was this one breakfast place that was always open, but obviously they weren’t open at night,” Borino said. “Other than that, there’s nothing. … You never got a healthy option.”
That’s why Borino, who opened Pizzeria Maria at 295 Daniel Webster Highway three months ago, spent Friday morning mixing homemade pizza dough and sauce, spreading cheese, and chopping sausage and pepperoni for any plow truck drivers who might be braving the colossal snowstorm predicted to descend on Greater Nashua this weekend.
Along with her Sicilian pizza and calzones for sale, Borino planned to offer free cups of coffee to plow drivers throughout the storm and into Friday night, plus comfy leather easy chairs for them to rest on for a few minutes during their shifts.
And she planned to stay open as long as the snow kept falling Friday – despite predictions for 2 feet or more in the region.![]()
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