The Clumsy Interloper

It’s been almost 2 months since my last post and there is new information to share.

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I’ve spent the past 6 months having conversations with family, friends, acquaintances and perfect strangers about deep dish pizza. I took a 10-hour online SERVSAFE manager course and passed the in-person test at PVCC. I commissioned a logo with Bellavance Ink. I created a 6-page business plan with target markets, success benchmarks and a mission statement. I’ve read 3 books dedicated to the history and craft of Chicago style deep dish pizza. I’ve had four meetings with advisors with the Central Virginia Small Business Development Council to discuss topics such a website point-of-sale setup, Quickbooks and Charlottesville Meals Tax. I got an Albemarle business license. I set up an LLC and got an EIN. I opened a business bank account. I got a 50 quart commercial spiral mixer for large batch dough creation. I created a HACCP plan (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point). I applied to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to be able to sell prepared foods in Virginia. I created ingredient logos pursuant to state regulations. I made an account on the Chef’s Warehouse website and entered ingredient pricing into my COGS (Cost of Good Sold) spreadsheet to generate a break-even analysis. I purchased FLIP (Food Liability Insurance). I got set up at the Bread and Roses commercial kitchen on Preston Avenue. I taught myself how to use the Elementor plug-in on WordPress to create a website and established email hosting. I made a menu with Chicago themed pizza names like the Hog Butcher, the Garden City, the Abe Froman and the Kerry Wood (straight cheese). I did countless small batch test bakes to get the recipe just right. I changed my license plate to HWKCTZA.

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Charlottesville, Virginia – Friday, March 21, 2025 – I schedule my first large bake. My plan – to deliver free pizza to friends and family, collecting survey feedback and soliciting online reviews. I coordinated delivery windows on Saturday and Sunday. I placed a bulk ingredient order that was delivered to my garage Friday and I blocked my Friday evening/night to conduct my first serious bake. I played blues music and wore my Cubs hat. I had my scaled-up ingredient measurements on the fridge (32 cups of flour!) and I made notations in the margins as I went. By 6pm the kitchen was bursting with that familiar aroma of sauteed onions and garlic folded into a brimming pot of tomato sauce. Tablespoons of oregano and red pepper flakes to taste. Adding the dough ingredients to the spiral mixer for the first time was exciting, the culmination of much planning and hard work. I tinkered with the water/flour levels but the consistency of the dough never quite matched my smaller batches. Far too elastic but after a while I had no choice but to press on. The dough balls were formed, coated with EVOO and placed in the proofing trays. Normally at the end of the first proof, I would roll out and laminate the dough with European butter (84% butter fat) before putting it in the refrigerator to chill, slowing down the proof and letting the butter seep into the dough. With 20 pizzas, I couldn’t move fast enough. The pizzas on the back end proofed too much causing them to become spongy and stodgy. I worked as fast as I could, my feet hurting now, sweat on my brow, frantically hurling foreign dough balls into Tupperware, stacking the garage fridge in desperation.

The overproofed dough was unwieldy, difficult to spread and springy in the pan. During the initial bake the crusts flowered forth like a mushroom cloud. It looked unrecognizable to my smaller batches. I decided to fully bake a pizza for quality testing. The crust was chewy, tasted bland and I didn’t even finish the slice. It was 11pm and I had a countertop full of overproofed, ill formed pizzas that were not fit for consumption in my opinion. I dutifully boxed them in the quiet stillness of the night and slinked off to bed – weary, defeated and alone.

I have not consumed alcohol in over 600 days, but I woke up with the closest thing to a hangover I’ve felt in a long while. The cold, harsh daylight was unkind to my creations as I removed the pizzas and stacked them on the dinning room table. Some of them had leaked, the overproofed dough not sturdy enough to keep the sauce at bay. I made coffee and sat in silence for a while, unsure what to do next. The reoccurring thought I had was the anxiety of this happening with paying customers – a one-man operation teetering on a knife’s edge. I then succumbed to inevitability. I wrote a solemn but vaguely positive email to those expecting pizza that weekend and swept 20 pizzas into two waiting contractor bags.

I received a bounty of beautiful comments in reply–

“Sounds like a tough session but I’m sure you’ll iron out the kinks”

“If everything goes off without a hitch, there is no story. And the writer always needs a story!”

“Try, try again. You have my full support”

“No worries dude, we’ll take one when you’re ready”

“This kind of stumbling block is so relatable! Glad to see you’re trying big things and we will be where when you figure it out.”

“I’m sure that was disappointing! When you’re ready, we’re ready 😊”

“Bummer dude, you got this though”

Up until this point, Hawk City Pizza was an exercise. An activity. A talking point. A conversational cudgel I used to beat back anyone who wanted to inquire about personal topics like “separation” and “co-parenting”. I got lost in this place that was familiar and safe, a stack of to-do’s obscuring the horizon of my calendar. After Friday, this venture became a real, living thing just like my runaway dough. I flickered back and forth between solace and grief. I felt ashamed for how heavy this disappointment landed, because I knew the textbook response to adversity, “Roll up your sleeves and try again!” After all, I’m pot committed, time to dig deep figure out a solution. But ultimately, I didn’t feel an iota of that moxie or spirit – I felt spent. I felt at peace. I felt done.

Making deep dish pizza is a centering practice. I love making it and sharing it. I like how it fits into my origin story. I think I realized something on Friday evening, more of a good thing is not necessarily a great thing. I started off with Hawk City Pizza to prove to myself that I can do hard things and to share pizza with my community. I feel like I dared greatly and, for me, accomplished my first goal. As for the second thing, I will have to be content sharing my pizzas with less people than I originally ventured. On paper this will go down as a failure and I’ll take that remark. But it was an important journey for me. Thank you for your support and interest in my story. It was so very important to hear it. I did not walk alone.