Its been far too long since i sat down and wrote about the biz and how things are going. I feel I’ve left the blogsphere empty. Its Sunday night, not workin till Thursday, and I decided I’d sit down and finish this entry I started a while back at the beginning of the month.
A few weeks ago somebody who has worked for me several times now asked me what are you thinking about 2.0? I said well what do you mean? 2.0? of course there has to be a 2.0 if the business is going to grow, right? what if 2.0 is a played out term from 2005 or some shit, and 2.0 isn’t really where its at? I have been pondering this for some time now. About three weeks and 9 hours now since he said it to me actually. Yes I do see a 2.0 in my future, but not right at this moment. My 2.0 is $100K in the hole to start it, and do it correctly. Until I develop the next bizness plan, I can’t really get started on a 2.0…
I am in the process of hatching a plan to start building a new, larger oven and some sort of vehicle to house it. We started this Current venture with a little bit of cash and a whole lot of enthusiasm, and have managed to sustain ourselves. We didn’t need a team of scientists to assemble it and mount it in a truck. I just did it. I was like F*& it lets do it.
I feel like I’ve been doing this for a long time now, but we really haven’t. I get asked, “when did you start this?” and I say well it was 2 years ago last month that I threw my first wood fired pizza (January 11, 2010) if you all recall. By the end of July of 2010 the mobile oven was created and on the road. Since then some 6000 pizzas have spit out of our little, and I mean little wood fired mobile pizza oven. People ask me what do I regret about building it? Usually I say nothing and I love my life, but I do secretly wish for a few more inches, you know. When you’re knee-deep in tickets, orders, whatever people’s immediate desires are written down on little pieces of paper, every inch of oven floor certainly counts. Stacks of tickets now, on a 24″ order rail, the smallest and most functional one I could find. I’m getting a little behind.
It must be art murmur in Oakland. Its now 7:15 and lots of tickets coming in, for slices, a few whole pies, but mostly we’re staying on top of it. Sounds like nobody’s waiting more than 10 minutes, at least I hope so. We can cook 3 pizzas at a time now, 2 really, with a third one finishing at the door, getting its salad tossed on. Arugula or basil is the salad tonight, wilting in the 900° heat rolling out from the pile of wood and coals in the right corner. Everything is hummin and then, bam. Someone orders three pizzas, again! crap. No time to sip on the beer I opened at 5:30 and stashed in the Hand washing sink, now filled with Ice and a couple cold ones. It’ll be there for me at 9:30 when its all done.
Our murmur crews are solid now. In four hours, we’ll kick out 78 pizzas on average. The first hour we make like 5-10 pizzas kinda standing around whistling, and then the next 68 happen like what just happened? By 9 pm they make us start pulling the plug and we need to clear the street by 9:30. last year we could be there till 10 pm, but they are tightening the strings on the event. People ask me why did we stop so early? or we just got here, you’re done? and we say yes, come earlier next time. Complain to the city I suppose. Tell the mayor you are unhappy and the permits should be extended to 11 pm, heck I don’t know who you’d need to complain to to get anything changed.
We’re still waiting on news about the interim mobile food pod pilot program that is supposed to be rolling out in Oakland. I’ve talked to one hopeful pod organizer and she is frustrated, theres a lot of fees the city’s throwing at it, and things don’t sound finalized yet. We’ll see if Oakland can get on the food truck map in 2012. For now I’ll keep on keepin on like we’ve done for the last 15+ months. Our permit is still valid at 23rd and Valley street, so come see us next Friday at the Oakland Art murmur, come early!
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