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There is a lot of wit inside a visit to Bsp’eria. First, Bsp’eria is not a cross between a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film and an Italian word for dough-based flatbread from rustic street vendor carts in 1700s Naples, however it may sound.

It is short for Bridge Street Pizzeria. Tiny and buzzing, this four-month-old dark-honey-brick pizzeria, as wide as a garage and backing onto train tracks in southern Sydney, sits on a road snaking up from Penshurst’s main shopping street and over a railway bridge.

You can see its glow on approach. The door, street window and red cloth awning frame silhouettes of staff and chefs feverishly making pizza in a small industrial kitchen edged by waiting customers and passing cars wondering what all the fuss is about.

Bsp’eria is spinningly popular. It’s also, in the wit vein, necessary via its phone-only ordering, to say the word vegana, a pizza featuring roasted potato, garlic, rosemary, balsamic and onion, out loud. Try it now. Vegana.

I say it to a cheery man who answers Bsp’eria’s phone five minutes after opening and 45 re-rings reaching an engaged tone.

“I know,” he says. “The vegana. It’s a tricky one.”

Bsp’eria has six pizzas, ranging from a margherita to the Funguy (truffle cream, mixed mushroom, mozzarella and thyme), hot pepperoni (with hot maple and pecorino), Uncle Charlie (mozzarella, 𝄒nduja, ricotta, honey and parsley), gamberi (prawn, stracciatella cheese and tomato) and the good old vegana (roasted potato), which is vegan.

There is also dessert pizza, the Dolce Life, which melds Nutella with poached pear; antipasti including olives, whipped ricotta dip and stracciatella with grape tomato, anchovy and basil; and a rocket salad with grana cheese and pear.

Michael Sgourdas, who opened Bsp’eria with business partner Mick Abboud in late March, says he consulted good friend Stefano de Caro, co-owner of Surry Hills restaurant Cicerone Cucina Romana, on the menu, process, staff and recipes.

“We’re doing a Neapolitan-style, which is like a woodfire-style, but we use a sourdough pizza base,” he says. “It’s got a really nice crunch, a lovely doughy feel to it.

“It’s a small menu so we can control the quality.”

Everything outside of supplied cheeses and meats is made inside the shop, including the dough. There are plans to introduce specials, and an online ordering system, but for now, it’s a matter of repeat-calling to get through.

“Friday, Saturday, it’s quite intense,” Sgourdas says. “It doesn’t stop. The phone goes up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, for a solid two hours.

“It’s a lot of talking, a lot of stress, a lot of trying to find gaps so people can get the pizzas. We do our best to accommodate everyone.”

Calling at 5.05pm on a Friday night means a 7.15pm pick-up, such is demand. On arrival, our order for margherita, vegana and gamberi pizzas, along with rocket salad, whipped ricotta dip and stracciatella, grape tomato, anchovy and basil salad, is running five minutes late.

We could eat-in using Bsp’eria’s collection of 10 stools and milk crates resting in a footpath alcove to the left. There are toilets, a public block, next door and parking is fine, particularly if you use the station walkover bridge to neighbouring streets.

Cars honk, people get off the train to collect their pizza and we stand beside Bsp’eria’s open window chatting to staff, some moulding dough with tattooed arms, others with wide grins, olive skin and dark ponytailed hair arranging basil leaves and mozzarella cheese on plates of dough.

It’s like we’re all in an episode of Chicago sandwich shop comedy drama The Bear, except everyone working is cheerful and laughing despite the unrelenting speed of their job.

The pizzas, walked out to us on the footpath in yellow red letter-stamped boxes, do not even make it home.

Driving in the car, two of our party in pyjamas eat the silky, bowing slices of beautifully chewy, char-speckled pizza, laden with good oozing cheese, fat prawns, fresh basil, rosemary flecks, golden roasted potato and fragrantly herby sauce.

Everyone says vegana loudly with the windows down. No regrets.