After moving to East Oakland in 1996 (to the Vulcan Studios at San Leandro and High st.),
I was struggling to find good pizza this far out, and I love a good pizza. So after several years of mediocrity, I started making pizzas at home from scratch in 2007. Friends would tell me it was bomb for a home cook. They would say I wish I could buy this kind of pizza, it's like nothing I've ever had! Fast forward to the fall of 2009, and just by chance, I took a class on building a wood fired pizza oven by hand down at the Institute of Mosaic Arts in Jingletown. I took copius notes and built my training oven in my backyard in the upper Fruitvale area. I began to hone my craft on friends, family, and random neighbors who'd stop by and buy pizzas from my driveway on Monday nights for $10! I'd host BYO pizza parties on the weekends, charging $20 for all you could eat, practicing making the pies, and saving up money to buy and build my first trailer, and lets just say it didn't take long to raise the necessary funds.

​

By Summer of 2010 I had purchased Shorty the short bus (R.I.P 2025), and built my first mobile pizza trailer on my driveway. I set out to sell pizzas wherever I could, starting at the School/art studio where I had taken the class. I remember I sold 33 pizzas during their 5th anniversary party. At that point I set my sights on bigger things and worked to become a legit business. We "legally" debuted our pizza trailer at the Oakland First Fridays in April of 2011. Boy did those first three years fly by! In January 2014, I opened my brick and mortar in the Laurel District, just up the street from where it all started. We named it the Doughjo as a play on the numerous martial arts studios on MacArthur Blvd. and an obvious wink to our name the "Fist of Flour" which has always been on a play of Bruce Lee's film the Fist of Fury, and a nod to his time spent living in the Maxwell park neighborhood nearby, and his years teaching martial arts right here in Oakland.

 

After Nine + solid years of  hundreds of private and public events, an amazing neighborhood following at the Doughjo, COVID hit the world by storm. That same week, my father passed away, and we all went on lockdown. That did not stop us, we regrouped, and remained the only go-to for pizza delivery and continued our takeout business as if...well we all know the what if now. The dining landscape had been changed forever. Many restaurants pivoted, and lots had to pivot much harder than we did, becoming increasingly reliant on third party apps just to keep the lights on. Our catering business came to nearly a complete halt and we were fortunate that our to-go model would get us out of the dark times. 

 

In the following years we saw things come back, but in a different way. We started catering again in late 2021, finally serving some of the clients we had booked in 2020, and we welcomed new clients as time went on. We still haven't fully recovered, and we've shifted our focus to private events, and still make the occasional appearances on the streets that made us who we are. The Doughjo is still humming along, and in January 2025, we celebrated our twelfth year as a takeout spot and 15 years running our catering business. I can't believe all we've been through, and we are grateful for all of our loyal customers, and to those we have yet to meet! Thank you Oakland for your ongoing support!