Chef Peter Garces: Everything the Fire Couldn't Take

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Sometimes losing everything forces you to finally build what was always inside you.

Chef Peter Garces grew up in Brooklyn, surrounded by food, family, and the unmistakable rhythm of New York pizza. His love for cooking began beside his mother, but the idea that it could become a life came from watching chefs, like James Beard Award winner, JJ Johnson, turned skill, culture, and creativity into something larger.

Peter went to culinary school, worked his way through dish bits, Garmer's stations, grills, saute lines, and some of New York's most respected pizza kitchens. At Roberta's, he stepped in front of a thousand degree oven with almost no experience, and somehow made it through a New York lunch rush without burning a pie.

At a pizza regionally, the work nearly broke him,

but it also hardened as discipline. At pizza loves Emily, you learn what happened when pizza was treated with the same intention, as any serious culinary craft, and at Mama's too, Peter found himself at the center of one of the most talked about pizza reas in New York. When the New York Times arrived, the pizza's photographed for the review were his.

When the review hit, the line wrapped around the block, and when Peter ignored an instruction to keep demand you simple, and filled the display with every pie he could make, Jerry Seinfeld walked in and discovered a pizza that kept him coming back. It felt like Momentum. Then, Peter's house burned down. He lost nearly everything and left a city that shaped him.

He arrived in Florida and discovered that the experience and reputation he'd built in New York did not automatically follow him. The kitchens were different to pay was different, and once again, he had to prove who he was, but the fire didn't end the story. It redirected it, with the support of his parents and his lifelong friend and business Martian Nigel, and a place called Catapult that gave him the resources to start again.

Peter launched the mobile pizza operation and moved into a brick and mortar restaurant within the same year. Today, by the chef pizza is not simply another pizza real. It's the result of every kitchen that trained him, every person who believed in him, every shift that tested him, and everything that that fire could not take away. He doesn't simply want to own a pizza shop. He wants to leave a mark. This is a story about craft, loss,

fatherhood, ambition, and what happens when a man is forced to start again, but refuses to start small. Chef Peter Garcess, welcome to walk and talk. When you look at by the chef today,

“do you see a restaurant you open or the life you rebuild after the fire?”

I see a restaurant that I opened because this is something that I can see in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I feel like my concept could work in New York where all the competition is so tough. I just feel like I came up with something that reflected such a long career, and because the career was just, you know, I put everything into it. It just translated into me, putting everything into my own concept, and I do believe that that concept was inevitable, whether it be because the fire

happened in all my trials of tribulation or even if everything went well in my life. I still believe I would have ended up with a by the chef pizza. You grew up cooking with your mother before you got into kitchens or any of them. When you look back and you contrast that against where you are today, would it those early moments with your mom give you that culinary school couldn't? So I would say wonder, you know, like you get a real sense of wonder as a kid from things that

as an adult, you don't necessarily do. I believe that as a kid cooking with my mom or even just watching my mom cook, you know, that was the best part of the day. Oh, food. I'm watching ingredients

“going by your roaring, and I'm seeing something wonderful happen. And I think I because of that”

sense of wonder as a child that I was able to experience, I was able to hold on to that, and I think as an adult, that translate into passion. So it's still wonderful, it's still magical, but now I know the science behind it. Whereas as a kid, it was just wonder. Now it's passion in art. Are you a creative guy outside of cooking to jubber up into, uh, with art or music or something like this?

To be honest? No, I went all lies. Yes, to be honest. I would say no. I was never really the

much to me because that is the one art that I like, you know, really love, um, such for martial arts.

I grew up training martial arts. I was always like a sports kind of, uh, fighter type of

kid, not so much art. So if that's the case, when you're looking at plates, when you're looking at food, and you're going to colors, and there's so many different things that you can do with it, and right now you're in pizza, which is fantastic. When you're looking at pizza versus, uh,

“you know, French or some other cuisine, how are you, do you see like negative space on plates?”

How are you approaching that? You know, just from the, from the, the art, the perspective of an artist? I feel like the pizza is kind of a blank canvas, you know, you get a piece of dough and really, it can look like whatever you want depending on what you put on that dough. So from that, uh,

from aspect or the context of, of an artist, when I look at pizza, I look at it as a blank canvas

that I can fill in, and when I think about what I'm filling it in with, there's the obvious, so I want color. I want, uh, uh, starts to go into your other senses. I want texture. I want all of these things, and I just really want it to come together as a complete dish, and if it's going to come together as a complete dish, then it has to hit a lot of different sensory marks, you know? You cooked up, uh, a handful of different, uh, pies. When we played at the canole,

I was pleasantly surprised how pretty it looked. Now, what you put together, and it was all you, you know, we had some microgreens and microflowers and whatnot. Um, Marvin came by today from

Cobble Club, and you kind of, you know, jazzed up the, the canolees, but the photography was

beautiful on that. They looked, it looked really pretty. So when I was putting that together, I tried to stick with, I guess simple logical things throughout life. So symmetry, color theory, I'm big into science and all that. So I do try to use these things. So yeah, if I put purple here on top of a white plate, obviously it's going to pop more. I put red on a plate. It's going to pop even more than that. So I try to keep all these things in my mind when I'm

trying to, you know, put together a dish. And it is really spur of the moment. Like, hey,

“this is my gut feeling. I think purple won't look as well here. It's red. Well, look here.”

So, um, there is definitely, uh, again, I would say less artistic and more a scientific approach to the art. Again, like, I like symmetry. I like color theory. So I can take all of that logic and try to wrap it in like, okay, maybe this flower would look good here. Maybe I should position it in this aspect. So it's symmetrical with this side. I think art is science, except it's abstract in some ways. Peter, if you ask me, I think you probably either can sing, you could paint, draw,

do charcoal, pastels, or something. And obviously, you know, John had something to do with with this as well. And he just, the photography is, is gorgeous, stunning, really. You've got to, you've got an eye for this. I'll take your interpretation, you know, to heart and your word for it to heart because you are right. It is art. And it is science just through the medium of an art, you know, as you were, uh, discussing. So I can definitely see that I just,

maybe it's a personal thing. I feel like artists put so much time and effort into that painting, that music, that thing. Maybe it's just a humbleness in myself that I'm just like, I have more work

“to do. Yeah, but that, that is, it is humble. But that's what you're doing when you're cooking.”

You're putting the same energy. You're putting the same time. It's the same motivation. It's the same passion. Sure. You know, except we're not eating a painting, we're eating what's on the plate, right? Oh, yeah. But you, you didn't go to culinary school, but you did, um, you did have direction and you sought after direction. You, you go the extra mile to learn. One of those people is Chef JJ Johnson, um, James Beard, uh, recipient. How does a young guy getting into this business

even meet a JJ Johnson, let alone being able to leverage somebody like that to give guidance in your culinary career. Look, happen, stance my family just so happened to be really good friends. My brother is best friends with him and, uh, that gave me the opportunity to just watch him as I was a kid. And once I was a teenager, I noticed while my brother's best friend is on TV as a chef.

because I know he worked hard. So if I'm willing to do the same thing, maybe I can, you know, do the same.

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supplies provider in North America. Tri-Mark works directly with operators, bringing design build expertise, supply sourcing strength, project management, installation, and servicing together to power smarter hospitality kitchens, learn more at Tri-MarkUSA.com. What's a conversation with him like, for you from your perspective? You go, hey, I mean, when do you call him JJ? Yeah, that will, I call him Chef, but I mean,

honestly, you didn't like call him Chef. I didn't always call him Chef, honestly, as a kid.

My brother's eight years older than me. I assume Chef JJ is either seven or eight years older than me. So I was always just that little annoying kid. I was the little annoying kid around my brother

“and his friends and that's how I wouldn't say that Chef JJ also, you know, looked at me”

is, oh, that's John's little brother over there. But for sure, as I got older, again, I recognized the Chef and the level of expertise that he had and that made me want to give him the respect that he earned and you know, call him Chef because he's earned that title. He worked very hard for that title and as at the time being a teenager wanting to get into the field, I need to recognize who has paid their dues and try to learn from them and try to grasp whatever I can from them.

So that way, I could one day myself be a great chef. You said earlier that you're into martial arts and you're fighting. Were you getting into trouble as a kid? No, I was, I just love martial arts and fighting. Like I was that kid watching Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and even UFC as I got into my teens, I wanted to be a and a mafighter for actually very long time. I wanted to be a mafighter along with the chef. I got into a, I trained for a while and I got into a bad accident. So it

kind of bearded me away from that, but I always have a love for martial arts from the age of five.

I train martial arts and that's an art for me too, but I would say. So look, you know, you're talking about Brooklyn, you're talking about the Burroughs, New York and everything and you know, I lived in Brooklyn as a kid in Benson Earth and also stand out. And I don't know how it is today, but back then, there was a lot of fighting. Just was what it was. What drove you into martial arts? Uh, would drove me into martial arts is my dad going to blockbuster on Fridays

and then coming back with whatever he could find. So in Van Dam, maybe? Oh yeah, you already know how that goes. So one day he's coming home with Bruce Lee and to the dragon. The next week he's

coming home with the Jackie Chan who am I, you know, and I'm just watching these things and I'm

I'm just like, wow, this is like, this martial arts thing is really cool. There's a discipline. There's a sense of pride and respect with it. And I just love that even as a kid. All right. This is a yes or no question. Steven's ago. No. Okay. Tell me me it's enough. But I got to tell you, when we were come when John and I were when we were coming up, Steven's ago was he was he was it. Yeah. He was it. And I don't know if it was just him, but it was like

the style and the the shooting, like the actual cinematography was real fast in your face and doing things that you're not accustomed to seeing and all that stuff. And then he got weird as you get older and the whole thing, but, um, yes, we heard your answer, "Ost." martial arts boxing, UFC, any of these fighting styles, it's a discipline. How old were you when you started my training from six until I was 18 straight stopped as soon as I got out of high school. And then I went back

to training, but this time specifically for MMA, because again, I do something I'm going to try to do it. So I made it a point to try to be an MMA fighter. And I trained for a good year and a half, and I was committed to try to make it in the cage. And that's when I, you know, just unfortunately got to a car accident and I messed up my leg a little bit. Nothing too crazy, but it did definitely postpone all the, you know, growth. I could have continued, but the chef thing while I was healing

was just glowing and getting bigger and bigger. Discipline comes from somewhere. And if you,

“and if you want to make it in the food industry, you have to have it. When you were at Roberto's,”

you were in charge of a, you know, 1000 degree oven. And you got stuck manning that oven by yourself

is there a correlation between all those years of martial arts and the discipline of it.

And then having the stones to make it through a shift in New York had a busy, very busy establishment like Roberto's. A hundred percent. I'm so grateful for martial arts as a kid, because I was already on discipline, you know, kids, but specifically me, I was very undisciplined and that really instilled the sense of not only a discipline, but how to deal with life problems, because martial arts is a way of life. So when problems occur, there's certain ways you deal with it.

There's the right way. There's the wrong way. When I'm in the middle of a rush the first time in

“New York City on a 1000 degree oven, Roberto's because my manager said, hey, I think you got it.”

Let's see. And I go for a test run. I'm able to, I was able to pull it off simply because I had the mental 42 of keep going. Don't mess up. Focus. Don't break your focus. But if you do mess up,

it's okay. Keep going. You don't stop. There will be a time to stop. There's always something

someone's going to stop you. Something is going to stop you until that happens. Go and make it through. And I had that mentality from martial arts. Hey, you can entrap all your senses. Making you do a bunch of pushups. You got to make it through those pushups some way. Well, you know, it's funny. A lot of the people who go out to die. I could many of them have never been in a kitchen. The hardly anybody outside of the industry

“will understand the ticket machine and the printing sound and have it a full wheel of orders.”

When you're talking about a kid in charge of, it's intimidating. And you're talking about fire

and ovens and heat 600, 800,000 degrees. That's intimidating to make it through something like that. And not really being trained for it. And you said that you didn't burn a pie of that day, didn't not burn a pie in that, and that lunch shift there. Was it at that moment that you knew you were built to be in this industry? I feel like I had the clarification that level of clarification before what that showed me or proved to me was that pizza specifically was something that

I needed to pay more attention to and to try out. Have you gotten your ass kicked in this business abused? I would say everyone in this career has at some point. So that's a hard yes. Where were you pushed the hardest? You've been in some pretty high-end places? Where would you say that you experienced at the most? This is a one place that really stands out. It was a piezo regionally in Brooklyn. They had opened, kind of like a food haul type deal

and a piezo regionally was located in there. That was a very difficult job because they wanted everything perfect. They wanted everything the best. Every day kind of felt like I was being pushed and also tested to my limits, which at the end I would say polished me as a chef and a piezo. At the time I wasn't fresh into pizza but that was definitely something in my pizza career where I was like okay this is a test. I think we were just talking about this earlier today

“while we were cooking and filming and everything but you need to you know kind of walk across the”

cold. The fire in order to understand how to deal with the fire. You have to earn your stripes and that means getting your butt kicked and taking it and learning and you're not going to learn if you're not pressed. You're not going to let me say like this. You might learn but you're not going to learn how to do it in its highest capacity and your highest capacity and let's you really push and press. I agree you have to go through trials and tribulations. Lessons have to

be learned very rarely is somebody at a point where they walk into something and you know they're just that perfect. No it takes the mistakes learning and even at that point you know point now and I was referring back again to martial arts. When you're a black belt when you're an expert and then you feel that doesn't mean you don't make mistakes. That just means you make less mistakes than a white belt would. Walk in talking media is proudly supported by rack porcelain USA creating

What means you made your mistakes already? You made the bulk of them already and you've surpassed

“making those same errors over and over again. Yes. I'm not saying that it's good”

for executive chefs or kitchen managers or you know people who are in authority in the kitchen to be abusive in a physical way or you know insulting or whatever. I'm not saying it's right. But I am saying if you endure that and you come out on the other side and you've learned and you're good at these things that you were taught. Even if you were taught in a way that damaged you or you'd think you're damaged, I think you're stronger. Again, I'm that saying throw

in a six pan at somebody across the you know. I'm not saying that that's good. But if you have to deal with that, okay. So what? Move on. The person who did it with Jagas wrong. But if you had to deal with that, you're going to just be stronger at the end of the day. You're going to be better. I don't know. I don't know if I'm, I don't know how well that's going to be received in today's world. But I feel like there's a fine line like walk to tight rope. If somebody

“is abusive, learn what you're, but they're really good. Okay. Here's the thing. If somebody's abusive”

and they don't have anything to offer for knowledge or skill set, get out. But if that's saying person can teach you something, absorb it and then leave and go do your own thing. I highly agree. But also, I feel like multiple things can be true at one time. You know? So like you said, that is that person right for making you go through for throwing spatula or or whatever at me in the kitchen, no, they're not right for that. But also, I'm still stronger

for that. Like no matter what the reality is that happened and I can't change that. I can only

learn from it, run from it or accept it and keep going and not learn, you know, just keep taking the abuse. What's the deal with vodka pizza? So I got into a place called Mama's Two, luckily because again, a chef JJ, I was at a point in my career where I was like, "Huh, what do I do next?" So I reached out to Chef JJ and I asked for his opinion and he said,

“"Hey, I've heard about this spot, Mama's Two, it's up and coming. I think you should check it out.”

Might be good for you." So I went, checked it out. I interviewed. I got the job. Six months later, I just happened to be the only pizza man and it's me and the owner. We're making pizzas all day running the whole thing. Coincidentally, we at somebody from the New York Times to come in and they review us and the review goes crazy. We're making pies just me and the owner. But because it was so busy, due to the New York Times review, he only had me making

pepperoni in the house pie, which is understandable. The volume is so high. We gotta keep it going. If we try doing too much, we might mess ourselves up. One night though, we were doing the usual and we had a point where I was just like, "Hey, I can fill up the window with all the nice pizzas that you have on the menu. Let me do that." And he was like, "I don't think it's a good idea. Probably just stick with the pepperoni in the house pie." I felt like my intuition was telling

me otherwise. So I was like, "You know what? I'm going to do it. I'm confident. I'm going to do it." So I showed him that I could do it. And once I did it, he was happy and he was like, "Oh, did it awesome?" And then even more on top of that, who comes in through that door, I'm in it later, right when the last pie comes out. Jerry Sinfeld. He comes in and he sees a beautiful display window and he walks up to their vodka pie that they had over there. He looks at it and he tries it.

And from that day on, he said, "Hey, this is my favorite pizza. This vodka pie is my favorite pizza."

So I just feel like I was very, I always say coincidentally, or luckily, luckily, I chose to go

in my intuition at that time. And that resulted in Jerry Sinfeld coming in and him claiming, "Hey, mom is too has the best pizza." And to this day, mom is too is rained as some of the best pizza, if not the best pizza in New York. When you told me that story, I'd literally heard the voice of Jerry Sinfeld, right? Like I totally saw the whole thing in my hand. I can only wish that

Elaine and Cramer in the gang, right? There's probably an episode somewhere that has to do with time. Possibly, but let's just hope that Larry David stops by by the chef pizza. I understand that he walks with the, uh, with the sound score and he just walks around, you know, the city with that playing in the background. At least I know he's coming. He runs shift. The boss says, hey, don't do that. And you said, uh, I'm an audible. And I'm going to do it.

The times comes photographer. All this happens while you're there. There had to be a feeling for you in your heart, in your soul. Maybe that you didn't even share with anybody. That had to

“do with belonging to the industry. Did you feel that? Was that something that came up for sure?”

Um, it was a very long hard path up until that point. Still tart and long path to this day. And the culinary field, but making it to that point and having something real for my resume that stands out and, you know, than more than just, you know, work the olive garden, work that, this place, work that that place and this place. You know, it's, it's all great, but to have something really shining like, yes, you were the soul, pizza, although my mom was too. When they

got reviewed by the times, the pictures that they took were pictures of pizzas that I had made that day. So all of that stuff kind of just made me feel like, hey, I picked, I picked the right path

for a culinary, because you, well, your life, you always think, hey, what if this, what if that?

What was I was a lawyer? What if I was a doctor? Uh, that kind of really helped me, you know, feel like, yeah, I picked the right path and then I was even more than that. I like, real vindication, you know, like, I did something proper, like, no second guess and I did it right. How bad was it for you to actually go through losing a home in a fire? And then I actually come to find out that it wasn't once and it wasn't twice, but it actually was three times.

First of all, I'd leave the state, just saying. But what is that, what do you even, like, what is that story? So from the moment that was kid in the 90s, there's been like four different people

“that lived in and out of my neighbor's house. The first person was, honestly, someone that was just”

mentally ill and she tried to burn the house down with herself in it. And when she did, the house caught fire and it spread to my house. This New York, so the houses are super close. So that was the

first time. The second time, third time, honestly, I couldn't even tell you because it was in my teens.

I just know my dad dealt with it and he was very upset. Nothing too crazy. The roof got damaged. Insurance, you know, they take care of it all that. Is this the same property? The same house. Three times at that, three or four times at that time. Again, I'm not really sure about the teenage years, but the final time in middle of COVID is when I lost it all. And yeah, that one was bad. Unfortunately, there was some kind of problem with the wiring next door and that just sparked

into a blaze and made it over to my house. Was anybody home? Kind of that, like, walk me through. So it was four in the morning. This is like five, four in the morning. I was knocked out. And all I know is somebody was banging on the door so loud that I woke up. And we're talking about earlier, this New York thing's happened. I'm thinking, wow, somebody's really trying to break in. Let me let me get ready. So I look out the window and I'm just like ready for anything.

And this guy is just screaming, your house is on fire. And as soon as he said that,

“I knew. And I actually asked him, I said, is my house on fire? Or is the neighbor's house on fire?”

And is it coming over to catch someone? He said, the neighbor's house and it's spreading right now to yours. So I just knew right away, get everybody awake, get everybody out the house. And we'll figure the rest out later. At no point that I ever think that I was in everything

everything because that's the third or fourth time that the house caught fire from the neighbor's house.

So I felt like this was just the usual that get it out. We'll take care of it. But this was not the same. How old are you? Support for Walk and Talk Media comes from Metro Food Service Solutions trusted by kitchens that meet storage and workflow that actually does the job. Learn more at Metro.com. In 2020, I was 30 years old. 30 years old. You get to understand every single feeling in

Yeah. It happens overnight. How many people are in the house with you?

“Two brothers. One other person was living always staying in the living room that night.”

A family member and myself. A adrenaline. Oh, yeah. Running, just shooting out of my high balls, running up and down, trying to make sure that my brothers are awake. Because at that point, I wasn't worried about myself. I'll jump out the windows. Anything crazy apps. I'll be all right. It's none crazy. I'm worried about my brothers who at the time were old, uh, uh, you know, and they're mid 40s and everything. So, oh, Geriatric. Well, not really. I mean, they work all day and they're

knocked out at night. So getting them awake was a, a battle. Me after the guy knocked on the door a few

times. I was like, what's going on? You were, you were, uh, you were in a stance. You were ready to go.

You were all, you were ready to do a crane kick. Like, it was on. I was going to kick the fire out for you ordered it. I totally get it. Not to, not to make light of it or make it, make it funny. But

“like, that is a nightmare scenario. I mean, I've had my alarm go off in the middle of, you know,”

overnight three, four in the morning and, uh, you know, I have to jump out of bed and clear the house and, you know, and you're, you're like, you feel it. But there isn't fire. There isn't smoke. There's none of these things like, like you see in the movies and stuff like that. I, I don't even know that. I, I don't even know. I don't even know. I am, for a man, I speak for living. I don't know what to say to you about that. It was an experience. It was an experience that I felt like would pass and it was

just, again, the usual up until there was so much smoke that the smoke was coming through the wall. When the smoke started coming out through the wall, that's when I was like, okay, I, I got to make sure everybody's okay and get the hell out here. Do you have a life lesson from that? What did you take from that to bring into the rest of your life? There has to be something.

“That is a great question. I would, I would say the big takeaway is there are amazing people out there”

because that stranger that knocked on the door and woke us up could have most likely did save. A lot of lives, all our lives inside the house that day and you didn't, you didn't have to do that. He knocked on that door for maybe about like three minutes before I finally made it to the front on three, five minutes before I finally made it to the front and it was like, hey, it's going on. He was there, bang, screaming, hey, get out of there. Hello, was there anybody? He didn't even know

there was anybody in there. Well, he was there. The rob, the place, he was there to rob it originally. Then he saw the fire and he was like, you know, why don't I better do the right thing. Right. And then this curb here at the museum just starts playing. So there are amazing people out there because he saved us. He really did. And to this day,

don't know who the guy was, never met him before that, never saw him after that, even immediately after

the fire. As soon as we start running out the house, I started looking for him, just like, hey, which kind of the save this disappeared? That literally could have been an angel. Definitely. I say that with the absolute straight face, for sure. You never know, somebody saved me. All right. So you get this Brooklyn kid. There's a fire. There's a whole life's worth of experiences when you're in your early 30s, right? You've already lived a lot.

And, you know, you got just a New York Brooklyn kid, whatever. And then all of a sudden, you're in Florida. And it isn't that you're in like Miami, right? No, you're in Lakeland. You came back to Lakeland. That's a culture shock. Number one, I know that culture shock, because I went from Miami as a child to Brooklyn and to back down to South Florida. But where I was in South Florida was very much like this Lakeland Central Florida vibe.

And it was not easy. How does a, how does a Northerner come to Central Florida and be accepted, open up a pizza shop, by the way, fantastic. Oh, and another by the way, I'm staring at this guy, Nigel, your partner. This cat drove, and I found out he drove down from New Jersey to be here for the show for you to support. I want to say thank you to that guy. I don't know what's the Nigel. I don't deny you any came with the blazer and everything.

Guys, you're all right, buddy. He's a pro. He's a pro. So you, you, you go from the northeast, you're in Central Florida. How'd you do with that? That's a big deal. That's a hard one.

checking out different states. I've driven too Florida plenty of times from New York. So I have plenty

“of outside of city experience and on top of that, when I was 12, my family bought a house here in”

Lakeland, and my grandparents lived there. So I would summer vacation down here plenty of times. Although it was different, you know, you go to Disney, you go to the pool, different type of vibe, and actually living here. But when I did actually move back down here, I did notice it was different. Like the population grew. There's a lot more trendiness here. So I do have experience with Lakeland. So the transition wasn't as tough as even I expected it to be. You know, I came down here.

I looked for some jobs. Didn't really work out simply because, you know, New York,

you were running kitchen for like 50,000 or up, and that's a salary. That's a career right there. And down here, they try to offer me like 16. So it's a little bit different. But that's okay. I had, you know, the drive and the knowledge and the experience to look at my situation and say, "Hey, it's been a while since I've been at Lakeland. I'm here now. It looks way different. The population is booming. There's so much opportunity here. Maybe I can just take my experience

“from New York, take all of that, and build something here in Lakeland." And that's what I decided to do.”

At some point, you had to figure out that having a New York resume didn't automatically earn your respect here. Time gets your respect here. Yeah. Time consistency and what you do. All right. So you're a year and a half in. You're in Lakeland. All these things happen to you. And you're starting to make it. I feel it because when I do go to the shop, I see people leaving happy. I see what you're creating. And I see how you do it.

When we met, John and I showed up at your shop, we said, "Hey, have a camera and hand." You mind if we, you know, shoot, you're doing some, some pizzas in the back and you're like, I literally, you know, can I say this about the baby? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You literally said, "I'm coming back from the hospital. I'm just checking up on the guys, and then I got to go back." How long is this going to take? You checked our credentials.

We told you, you know, 30 minutes. And you were like, "Game on. Let's go." I already knew what kind of person you were. Like, you're going to go get it. You're going to make it happen. You're going to see opportunity and you're going to just go. So you being a year and a

“half in, it's starting to gel. How far away still are you from achieving what you want to achieve?”

Because you still have a lot of plans. Yeah. Year and a half is nothing. Like, you have some very, you and I, you're a very long-term plan. I would very much, how far am I? I would say I'm pretty far away from, I'll break it up into two things. There's my, uh, the by the chef pizza. And there's what I want to do beyond that. So what I want to do beyond that is open up various different types of food. Not just pizza, you know, different restaurants, food hall concepts. I have a lot of things that

I want to work on for the by the chef specifically. I also feel like I'm far away. A little closer than the other concepts, because by the chef is standing, like you said a year and a half in,

but we have some momentum there. But I still feel like I am always off because specifically because

I'm still in there to be honest with you. I am in there all day every day. I'm double checking. You know, once there's a point of, I don't have to set foot in the building, but the build up, but the business is still running and I have employees that I can trust and everything is running like clockwork and I don't have to put so much focus in to being there. That's when I'll know, like, okay, I've made leaps and bounds forward because

yes, I can execute and that's great. This session of walk and talk media is made possible by Citrus America delivering fresh Florida citrus and juice solutions to food service professionals nationwide, learn more at CitrusAmerica.com. I can execute pizzas. I can do all that and that's

to grow more, create more. And if I'm stuck running my operation all day, simply because, you know, for whatever reasons, my employees call out or there's a gas leak. We're still year and a half in so we're paying off debts, all of that stuff. You know, once all of that isn't a place of it's ironed out, then I feel confident and I'd be closer to those end goals that you're speaking of. But right now, I would say I'm a far away away from by the chef pizza being what it truly should be

and from my own side operations, again, food hall, all that stuff that I would love to do. Well, let me just say this. Let me put it out there. I know pizza very intimately. What you're doing

“is pretty serious. I think, I'm going to say this on record. What you're putting out is the closest”

thing to actual New York pizza that I have had in Florida. Nice. And I mean that. And I'm not going to say it. If it's not what I believe, I will also tell you that going forward and we talked about this. When we have, we have a lot of chefs and folks that come through here, the studio that come from my Natalina and whatnot, and usually we'll pick up food and have stuff here. You know, you and I discussed that we're going to do some work with you. You're going to do some work with

us and you're basically the, you know, the walk-and-talk, you know, official pizza ria for the studio. And it sounds silly a little bit, but it's not. And it's actually kind of cool. And it's a big, for me, it's a big deal. And I feel like you think of the same way on your person. Do you know what I mean? Because it's like, I respect what you do. I respect your approach to it. And the food, it's so damn good. It's so good. And I'm going to say this, too. Like, Ellen B. in Brooklyn.

I started going there when I was like four years old. It was around the corner from where we live.

So we were always go. So that has always been the number one pizza for me. I don't care who you

are. That's it. And I know it's not the same as it used to be. I know there's new owners. I know all of that. But what you're doing reminds me of what they do. And I don't know if it's an nostalgia thing or whatever, but the long and short of it is you are filling a big void for me with a particular food type that I dig. So I'm so happy you feel that way. And I can't explain how appreciative I am of that perspective in opinion. Because I take what people have to say, you know, it's hard.

Because again, every day, I want to be better and better. I want my food to get better and better. Every day, it's a goal to be the best. Because I am in this to be the best. I know that's true because you throughout the day here in the studio. And it's been a long day today. But you were your checking reviews in between takes and stuff like that of the of the Petaria.

“And that's what it takes, man. Yeah. When you care, you care. You see, you look at these things.”

This is what it is. I'm always preoccupied. Checking the cameras, making sure customers are happy,

making sure employees are doing what they got to do. Because again, I take this very seriously. Obviously, it's a livelihood. But beyond that, it's a, again, passion. I'm in this to be the best. And that's, that could have been true for everything. Anything. Again, martial arts. If I decided to be a lawyer or doctor, I'm trying to be the best doctor or a lawyer, whatever it is that I can be. Obviously, slow, easier with the culinary thing.

But again, coincidentally, how fight you? I just coincidentally, and luckily, I was trained. Or I have the, the resume that I have. So when you say, my pizza tastes like the most like New York, it means a lot because I was trained by the best pizza people in New York. So that means that I've learned. I'm living up to what they have taught me. And I'm going in the right direction.

“Let me stop here for a second. Because here's the thing about pizza.”

And you can hear some over the years. You hear the excuses. Oh, it's the water. It's this. It's that.

And I never believe that. I just, I've never swallowed that. And I think you just don't know what

you're doing. You know what I mean? Tons of pizza places that are out there where you can just walk

But then there's different levels to this. Yeah. And if you claim, hey, this is, you know, this is New York style pizza. No, man. No, it's not. It isn't. That's a lie. And you're doing it wrong. And I don't know if it's your ingredients. I don't know if you know how to, I don't know if you

know the right way to do it. You will never taught. You learn that on YouTube. Man, I don't know.

“But you know what you're doing. And you man, dude, do you know what you're doing?”

I, and you know what? John Hernandez, this guy, right here, him. Let's all look at John. Is there a John? That guy, he's the one that turned me on to you. Because he, you know, he lives, obviously, you know, it's like six minutes from the, yeah, it's from from here. Good work, John Hernandez. Shout out, John Hernandez. And look at these freaking, like, okay, so just, I said this the other week, right? And I just said, hey, they were looking at the wall and I said, there was a picture,

but I didn't put any perspective to what we're talking about. John, you got a TV, big TV on his wall. And when John takes pictures, he has a software, whatever he transfers the image right here to the TV. And we're looking at stuff that he just shot at a camera without even editing. And damn, it's really beautiful. Look at that, dude. Beautiful, right? I'm not taking it right there. I'm taking a picture. I'm doing this like live. Let me just do this here real quick. So people can

say, because I'm going to post this later. It's funny that you say that about the water because I

wholeheartedly agree. And it's true because pizza, like, one of it, more a third of it, a little more

than third is, is crust. You know, that's bread. Either you can make bread or you can't make bread. So you don't go to a bakery and say, hey, because you don't have New York water, your bakery

“isn't good. No, they can make bread or they can't. And I believe pizza is the same way.”

Either you know how to make a crust or you don't. You know, cheese and the sauce, level of quality ingredient. Wait a minute. Yeah, but don't sleep on the sauce. The sauce is super important. Incredibly, all of these things are important. Right? Cheese, the right sauce, obviously the crust and how to tie them all together. Yes. There's a science and an art to that.

Well, hands down without question. Oh, yeah. The, the, the, the tomatoes, like you said,

it's the sauce. It also has to be good. There's same like the crust, you know. The New York water, that's not the thing. You can either make a bread crust or you can't tomato sauce. You can either make a tomato sauce or you can't. There's nothing special or or anything you need to have to do. You just have to know how to alter flavors. You know, tomatoes can be acidic. Do you know what to do when tomatoes are acidic? You know, that all that comes into play when you're

building a pizza. And yet high quality ingredients is going to be the thing to save it all. A lot of pizza reas they'll use tomato paste in order to thicken up their sauce or really stretch their sauce. But tomato paste, that's the thing that gives you heart burn and in the middle of the night, you got that thing here. That's, you know, that's personally not for me. Over here by the chef, we do use the whole peel tomatoes. We blend it up and we season it up and that's it. We keep

it simple. You don't want it. If you have high quality ingredients, you don't want to do too much to them. What you do, like you said, you want to them to build off of each other. You want flavors to combine. You want flavors to compound or react differently. Once they hit your tongue, to give you contrast. And that is where it all comes down to where what's going to make the best pizza. But realistically, if you want a good pizza, you don't need the New York water. You just need

“to learn how to make some bread. How important is family to you? Can't put into words how important”

family is especially, you know, after the fire thing, after a fire, you know, you don't have a family. You can wind up or the resources, safety nets, you can end up homeless and, you know, just the worst things. But luckily, I had family. I stood with family. And we got me to this point. Family is everything to me. Your dad helped you with this. Yes, there would not be a buy the chef pizza without my father. How cool was it? What's the feeling for you? When your father

not just helped you, but he tells you that he believes in what you're doing. That's massive for a

island seafood dip creating chef driven crab dips made with real seafood and bold flavor. Learn

more at crab island seafood dip.com. Dad is always the hero as a kid and dad, you know,

you know, as you grow up that is that is that is that's that's the guy. So I definitely had a a feeling of pride and like, wow, thank you so much dad for believing in me and and seeing that I can make this happen. So it's a real tear jerk or, you know, from like a father son

“type of context, but honestly even beyond that, I believe my father to be a very intelligent”

hardworking man. So leaving out everything else, my father as the human, the fact that he still believed in me and invested, again, not because I'm his son, but because I showed him, hey, this is the

pizza thing. This is me interacting with customers. This is this, this and this and give him a sense

of, wow, you know what you're talking about. You're an expert. We can make something happen here. The fact that my dad, you know, believe that is, is just, again, I can't put into words because I really do believe my father is a very intelligent man. More so even than myself. So if he says, hey, you're a good investment, that makes me feel great. He could have been like every other father and said, no, come back to school, be an engineer, be an attorney, you know, do something.

But he embraced you. He saw you love in your passion for this and you back to you. Do that's

one of the coolest things that could possibly happen to anybody. Not only is it cool, that transfers

into your own family because when your wife sees that your father gives you that kind of respect, she's inherently going to have respect, just the way that it works. And that is beautiful. It really is, uh, again, especially as a son, my father, you know, from a son to father, like my dad means the world to me. And again, just the fact that he believes in me so much, that gives me the, it gives me the feeling that other people will also believe in me. I know it seems

“a little backwards, like your parents should believe in you, even if nobody else does. But honestly,”

again, just because my, I believe my father would be a very logical, smart, educated man. So when he says, hey, you're good investment. It just, like, it brings out so much pride and joy for me. So, you know, again, without him and catapult, this wouldn't have, you know, by the chef wouldn't have happened, at least not yet. So what you're trying to build is it's bigger than pizza? It's for family. You legacy that you're building, really. And everybody's along for the ride.

Everybody has a place. Everybody has something to do with it. But you're building something like as your kids get older. They're going to probably be a part of it. At least for a little while, maybe they'll have their own things that they're going to want to go do whatever. But this is something that everybody's going to remember, well, past, you know, when we're all gone and they're still here. Yep. What is that? How does that sit with you in your head? That's exactly what I'm trying

“to build. And legacy, legacy is, as I believe, the main word that I would go with. That's, that's”

what I want to, you know, build and then leave for my family. So that way, you know, one day that I'm gone, they will still have a by the chef there to hopefully, you know, support them and give them the safety and that's that they need. It's a beautiful thing. I'm glad that we're here in our capacity for it. We're going to see a lot of each other. Dude, you did fantastic today. Thank you. No, thank you. How do how do people find you? So you can find us at www.bythechev.peta. We are located at 1212 South Florida

Avenue in Lakeland, Florida. We are by the chef pizza. Lakeland's premium pizza providers and even be on that Polk County's premium pizza providers and hopefully one day your premium pizza provider. Totally true. Everything you're saying is absolutely true. I'll look them up on Instagram at by the chef pizza. Nigel, again, dude. Thank you, my man, for coming through. I can't believe you drove

administrator. Yeah, the guy's awesome. I feel like we should be doing something like

“you know. All right, John will brown. You're awesome. Appreciate you guys. We are out.”

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