The front windows of his restaurant have been broken.
Twice.
It was a joke to the people that were probably drunk and thought it was funny. Often, he sees drunken people fall out of their chairs and collapse onto the floor. Students have stolen his small vending machines — later to be returned by the police. And a large purplish-yellow bruise is forming on his arm where a drunken female grabbed him to hold herself up.
Sal Mavruk, 32, owns Bell's Greek Pizza on 225 M.A.C. Ave., one of the three Bell's locations in the Lansing area.
Every night he works the graveyard shift from 12 to 4 a.m., serving hot pizza and grinders to hundreds, if not thousands of students each week.
On most weekend nights, 80 to 100 people will be in line for a 94-cent slice of the restaurant's pizza after the bars close.
"You have to watch (the drunken students) because you're always scared they're going to fall down, get hurt," Mavruk said. "That's the thing that bothers us.
"Sometimes they're out of control."
Around 1:30 a.m., a rush of red-eyed boisterous students form a long line weaving through the restaurant. A group of girls in matching pub crawl shirts scream and laugh as they wait.
Calmly, Mavruk talks to a customer on the phone while taking money from a student in line.
For a man who has an electrical engineering degree, worked as a landscape painter and an accountant, and owns a grocery store in Turkey, baking and slicing pizza all day is quite the change of pace.
The short sleeves of his T-shirt reveal burns up and down his arms from the massive industrial stove he bakes the pizzas in.
"If you don't burn yourself you aren't working, you're just hanging out," he said.
A native of Turkey, Mavruk moved to the United States three years ago to be near his brother, who was a graduate student at MSU. In his free time, he spends time with his girlfriend, mostly going out to other restaurants.
The business, of course, has its challenges. Working in a college town, he said the summers are really slow.
"Before one year ago, I wanted to sell the store because I was sick and tired of everything," he said.
"I changed my mind because my brother helped a lot. Sometimes I don't want to leave (the restaurant)."
Originally, he planned to add Turkish foods to the Bell's menu, but due to lack of time each day, it became impossible to make extra food. He longs to open a restaurant of his own — a restaurant that would serve Turkish foods.
But Mavruk does enjoy staying busy, even when he's holding the phone to his ear with one hand and checking the pizza in the oven with the other.
"The best thing is (that) this store is 35 years old," he said. "Sometimes alumni come back 20 years later.
"I feel really good then."
Even with broken windows and fighting students, Mavruk continues the age-old Spartans tradition of Bell's pizza.
Despite the renovations he's made, the same wall-sized mirror greets students as they enter, the faux wooden tables still rock if they are bumped, and you can still get a slice of greasy, cheesy pizza for under a dollar.
"Bell's, can I help you?"
Mavruk is ready for another graveyard shift.
