When you walk into Crown Pizza, the smell of homemade Greek dishes and a family atmosphere greets every customer.

The menu is filled with favorites using made from scratch family recipes from decades ago. Taso Vitsas owns the Waterford hot spot with his parents and sister.

“The older you get, the more you appreciate having them in your life,” said Vitsas. “We need everyone’s hands. I need my mother hands. I need my dad’s hands and my sisters hands.”

Those hands serve up the uniquely popular taco pizza.

“We cook it with the taco meat so it comes out of the oven and boom,” said Vitsas. “We put sour cream, tomatoes, olives, jalapeños, lettuce and crushed up Doritos on it.”

The pizza parlor got some unexpected advertising in front of a national audience last fall when owner Taso Vistas got tickets to Game 4 of the World Series from a friend in Chicago, and in return the restaurateur gave his friend a baseball cap emblazoned with his restaurant’s name.

That friend left the cap in the dugout, and a TV camera captured it while panning over ALCS MVP Andrew Miller.

“I gave it to him at the World Series and he just put it in the dugout and forgot about it and somehow the FOX cameras caught it and our lives changed forever,” said Vitsas.

It is their relationship, two decades in the making, that means the most to this successful pizza maker.

“He’s my motivation,” said Vitsas. “When I see him, even if it’s just for five minutes, for some reason I just see the world more clear and my goals become more attainable, he just has that effect on people.”

There’s a good chance Davis, who has made it known that his favorite is the taco pizza, could be at Crown Pizza this Sunday for a grand re-opening before heading out to spring training next week.

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The renovations have doubled the size of the Greek-style, family-owned pizza restaurant. The 3,000-square-foot eatery enjoyed a surge of popularity after Rajai Davis, then a star for the Cleveland Indians, placed a black-and-white Crown Pizza ball cap on the team’s bench in a spot that garnered attention on television and mentions in newspapers around the state.

“It’s just been great,” said Taso Vitsas, son of Crown Pizza’s founders, who befriended Davis at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point, where the New London native played baseball. “It’s a good feeling after all these years of hard work.”

Davis, an East Lyme resident who rigorously works out in the off-season, said he and the outgoing Vitsas met at the Avery Point gym and became fast friends. It wasn’t long before Davis became a regular at Crown Pizza, where he became hooked on the taco pizza.

“Everyone gets a cheat day,” Davis smiled.

Vitsas got tickets from Davis to one of the World Series games in Chicago, then had the brainstorm to give the center fielder a Crown Pizza ball cap with his number 20 on the back. The hat became the subject of speculation when it appeared on the Indians’ bench next to ace reliever Andrew Miller as the Fox Sports Network focused its cameras on the lanky lefty.

The momentum from the Crown Pizza story being posted on social media eventually landed the ball cap image all around the globe. Vitsas said he has sold more than 1,000 Crown Pizza ball caps since the World Series, and business is better than ever.

“We’ve always had a steady business,” he said. “But this year it’s almost been summer throughout the winter.”

Renovations were made possible when the owner of Nick’s Package Store next door decided to retire. Plans for the makeover started to take shape last September and were completed about a month ago, necessitating several new hires among wait staff and kitchen help.

New pizza ovens, ceramic tile flooring that looks like wood, an expansion in the back to give more room for food preparation and a welcoming front entrance with comfortable seating for those needing to wait were just some of the more noticeable changes. The restaurant, opened 29 years ago and still run by Vitsas’ parents, Leo and Tina, closed for only one day during the renovations.

The white and gray color scheme was chosen by Vitsas’ sister Zaffy to give a warm, Cape Cod feel to the restaurant. The restaurant has only 15 extra seats but feels much roomier and far more comfortable with booths along the side walls and two flat-screen televisions.

Photos of the small Greek island of Samothraki, where Vitsas’ mother and father grew up, dot the renovated restaurant, along with signs made by Zaffy with phrases such as “This Is My Happy Place” and “Family.” Another Zaffy touch is a lighted sign that reads “Like Us on Facebook.”

“We look at everyone as family in here,” Taso said. “It’s one thing to say it, but we really believe it. We would do everything for the customer so they could be more comfortable.”

The restaurant will hold its grand re-opening from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday, with a variety of free beverages and food available to customers. Davis might show up, Vitsas said, though there is no guarantee.

Vitsas noted that the renovations were planned well before Davis made Crown Pizza famous, but he said the timing of the publicity couldn’t be better.

“It gave us more of a confidence that everything is going to be OK,” Vitsas said.

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Vistas has been friends with Cleveland Indians outfielder Rajai Davis since they were in college. Vistas describes Davis as “the most famous friend I have, or famous customer.” After the Indians earned their first visit to the World Series since 1948, Davis gave his old pal tickets to the fourth game. Vistas thought to himself, “Since he got me World Series tickets, I get him a hat in return, and we’ll be even. That’s fair, a fair price.”

Davis left the cap, emblazoned with the words “Crown Pizza of Waterford,” sitting in the dugout during the game, and one of the network’s cameras just happened to pan to a shot of the cap behind an Indians player. Within minutes, Vistas was getting flooded with phone calls and texts, and the phones started ringing at his pizzeria, too. “Stories are the best when they’re an accident, you know, and that’s why this one’s a great one,” Vistas told Fox61. “It wasn’t planned, and it’s great.”

It was a great night for the Indians, too. They won the game 7-2.

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Taso Vistas, the owner of Crown Pizza, is longtime friends with Rajai Davis, an outfielder for the Indians, according to FOX 61.

“Since he got me World Series tickets, I get him a hat in return, and we’ll be even. That’s fair, a fair price,” Vistas told the station.

Vistas said he had dozens of texts and phone calls on his cell phone within minute of the hat being spotted.

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One of staff’s favorite customers is actually playing in the World Series.

“That’s Rajai Davis’ pizza. It gets him to the World Series. It’s the pizza of champions,” said Taso Vitsas about the restaurant’s taco pizza. His family owns Crown Pizza.

Rajai Davis, an outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, grew up in New London, and graduated from New London High School and the University of Connecticut – Avery Point.

That’s where his and Vitsas almost two decade-long friendship began. The two still work out together, break bread together, text, and Davis still frequents Crown Pizza. He even special orders the Taco pizza to have no olives nor jalapeños.

With the Cleveland Indians on a hot streak this season, Vitsas called in a favor.

“Listen, I need tickets to the Wrigley Field World Series,” Vitsas asked Davis. “After they clinched, he texted me, ‘Which game you want to go to?’ ”

As a thank you, Vitsas made Davis a Crown Pizza hat with his name and number “20” on it.

“I believe if he gets me two tickets to the World Series and I get him a hat, I think it’s a fair trade,” Vitsas joked.

Davis posed for pictures, even a selfie in the hat and at one point, placed it down in the Indians’ dugout.

That’s when Crown Pizza was thrust into the national spotlight. The hat showed up on TV, on the Indian’s bench, right next to relief pitcher Andrew Miller.

Dozens of missed calls and texts alerted Vitsas to what happened. All he could do was laugh. So did Davis.

“I just couldn’t believe it. That (the hat) made it up on the World Series with 20 million viewers. You know, something like that typically cost half a million to get that kind of coverage,” Vitsas said.

Vitsas, who always longed to be a professional baseball player, said his dreams of being in the World Series finally came true. While he wished it was him in the dugout, having his hat there was a surreal experience and it’s all thanks to his friend, Rajai Davis.

“Everything was just right. It was just perfect…this is my world series,” Vitsas laughed.

The publicity happened just in time – Crown Pizza is doubling in size, so it will soon be equipped to handle bigger crowds.

Vitsas said he also ordered a Crown Pizza World Series hat that he plans to debut soon, and is looking to create a special menu item for Davis.

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And Davis, now a key member of the Cleveland Indians team that is one game away from winning the World Series, has been a fan of the Vitsas family’s Crown Pizza on Boston Post Road for almost as long, his favorite dish being the taco pizza.

The two are friends, and during the offseason Davis, who grew up in New London and has a home in East Lyme, is a regular at the Greek-style pizza restaurant.

“He’s just such a captivating guy,” said Vitsas, a New York Mets fan during the regular season. “He hasn’t changed from then to now.”

So when Vitsas had a gut feeling about three weeks ago that it was going to be the Indians vs. the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, he asked Davis about the possibility of cheering him on at Wrigley Field. A day later, he got a message back asking which game he wanted to attend.

That’s when Vitsas got the brainstorm to give Davis a black-and-white Crown Pizza ballcap with his number 20 on the back, a memento that made it into the spotlight on national television Saturday when the hat appeared on the Indians bench next to ace reliever Andrew Miller.

Hartford-based Fox 61 Television eventually got in on the act, wondering how a ballcap from Connecticut had landed in a World Series dugout nearly 1,000 miles away in Chicago. The answer: Vitsas had handed the cap to Davis from the stands, and the outfielder had somehow arranged for it to be propped up on the bench so the Crown Pizza of Waterford lettering was visible to a TV audience of millions.

“It’s unreal; it’s what it should be — a local guy remembers where he came from,” said Steve Pirelli, a regional manager for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Southeastern New England who ate Monday at Crown Pizza and stopped by to shake Vitsas’ hand.

But Vitsas, sitting Saturday behind home plate with his wife Ourania along with a group of Indians friends and family, had no idea his cap had made it into the national spotlight. It was only while heading back from the game, a 7-2 Indians victory, that about 30 missed calls and 20 to 30 texts alerted him to what had happened, he said.

“I said to my wife, ‘I can’t believe this,'” Vitsas said. “We looked at each other and we just started laughing.”

Then the momentum picked up as Fox 61 did its story, and people started posting the picture of Miller next to the Crown Pizza hat on Facebook. As the story gained traction, Vitsas texted Davis Monday to make sure his friend felt comfortable with him talking about what happened.

“Just make sure to let them know the taco pizza is my favorite,” he recalled Davis texting back.

The pizza, one that Vitsas added to the menu himself, includes taco meat, sour cream, lettuce and crumbled up potato chips (along with jalapeno peppers and olives that Davis leaves off).

The publicity comes at a fortuitous time, since the 28-year-old restaurant started by Vitsas’ mother and father, Leo and Tina, is undergoing renovations that will double its size. Vitsas estimated the newly refurbished 3,000-square-foot space will open in the next six to eight weeks, focusing on the same large portions and low prices that have distinguished the family restaurant where his sister, Zaffy, also works.

Vitsas said he usually shuns the spotlight, but he’s happy that his friend Rajai Davis has been flourishing in it, with three stolen bases and two hits in game five of the World Series. He marvels at Davis leading the American League in stolen bases at the age of 36.

“I’m a big Rajai Davis fan,” Vitsas said. “I just want him to do well.”

Not coincidentally, the Crown Pizza hat that Davis helped make famous hasn’t been doing badly, either, to the point that Vitsas is considering a significantly larger order of the caps next time around.

“They’re just flying off the shelf,” he smiled.

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The hat was spotted in the Cleveland Indians dugout behind ALCS MVP Andrew Miller during the FOX Sports broadcast of the game, according to Fox 61. Owner Taso Vitas was able to get the hat in the dugout after imploring stadium staff to put it there while attending the game.

Vitas is friends with Indians player Rajai Davis, originally from New London, who was able to get him tickets to the big game, Fox 61 reported. The pizza shop owner later received messages after the game telling him the hat had made it on television.

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Taso Vitsas, the owner of the pizza restaurant, has the right connections, apparently.

Vitsas is friends with Rajai Davis who plays for the Cleveland Indians. Davis is from New London.

An Indians fan, Vitsas had a feeling they might make it to the World Series this year, so he asked Davis for tickets. He also made a hat that said “Crown Pizza of Waterford.”

When Vitsas got to Chicago Saturday, he prevailed upon stadium staff to put the hat in the dugout.

And there it stayed.

Until ALCS MVP Andrew Miller sat near it and was picked up by a camera during the FOX Sports broadcast of the game. On the shelf next to him, the shot clearly showed the Crown Pizza hat.

But Vitsas didn’t know that. He was sitting in the stands, excited to watch his Indians win. When he got out of the stadium, he checked his phone and found more than 30 messages from all over telling him the hat was on TV nationwide.

Back home on Sunday, Vitsas was fielding messages from friends about the placement in front of millions of viewers.

The Waterford man says he’s thrilled that his plan worked out, especially since he claims he’s never done any marketing.

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