SLABorigins: Eric’s Story

It’s been over 13 months now that SLABpizza has been open.  What a year it has been.  For me, the best part of it all has been all the kind people who have come into the establishment and all the friends that we have made.  It is a pleasure to serve them and get to know them.

A while ago, Andy wrote a blog entry about his experience with pizza growing up; his Uncle Eddy in Rochester, NY and his experience while attending grad school in Chicago as well as family pizza nights.  I think that it is time to share my families experience with pizza.

A few years after my wife Julie and I had our first son, we were living in Mesa Arizona. I had a corporate gig in the telecommunications industry and Julie managed our home and took care of little Jeremy. One Saturday morning during this time we were watching a PBS cooking show (this was before the days of FoodNetwork), it was Julia Child and some Italian chef (whose name I can’t remember), and they were making pizza.  After watching the episode I said to myself “hey, I can do that”, so after the show it was off to the internet for some quick R&D and from then on we were making pizza in the Beutler home.  We got into the whole thing, growing our own herbs, tomatoes, roasting the tomatoes and garlic for the red sauce, experimenting with the bread and crust, finding just the right cheese; the whole shebang.  It was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed what we ate immensely. We invited friends and family over from time to time to share the flatbread victuals we loved so much.

A few years later my family and I moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, about 50 minutes outside of Pittsburgh, PA in the WV panhandle where I 70 and the Ohio River intersect.

Not long after we moved out there I had read somewhere that the best way to cook pizza was “hot and fast”.  I learned that the wood fired ovens cooked pies at around 800 to 900 degrees Fahrenheit and that the coal fired ovens reached over a thousand up to 1200 degrees.  Up until that point I thought I could make a pretty good pizza in my conventional home oven at 550 degrees, but I knew I was missing something. Almost immediately I had a plan. I learned that while conventional ovens only reach a max temperature of 550 degrees they do have the capacity to reach 800 to 900 degrees when in the cleaning mode. This was my plan: I go to the local thrift store and buy a used oven, I break the handle so that I can open and close the door while it is in the “clean” mode and bahdah bing I have a pizza oven. It was pure genius I thought until I told my next door neighbor, an old timer who, I soon realized, was much wiser than I. He said, “Why go to all of that trouble”, “Just go over the auction in Rogers, Ohio on the second Tuesday of each month”. “They have everything there”. “You will find a pizza oven there.”  I thought and responded “cool”.

Then the next first Tuesday of the month I drove along the banks of the mighty Ohio river about an hours drive up to Rogers, Ohio http://www.rogersohio.com/. I kid you not, they have everything there. From new exercise equipment, to old ringer washers that the Amish people bought like they were new, to old farm equipment, TVs, cars, lawn equipment, fruit and vegetables, and a lot of junk too. After almost getting electrocuted in an afternoon rainstorm that dumped what seemed like five inches in fifteen minutes, I continued my search through the almost 30 acres of stuff for sale. At the end of almost 8 hours of auctioning, there it was, the PIZZAZZIP pizza oven made by Harvic Mfg NY NY.

The auctioneer started the bidding, no bid. I responded, “I bid a $1″. He said “come on, you gotta give me at least 2″. I said, “Ok”.  After sales tax it came out to be $2.14. What a cool day.  After an over haul of sandblasting, rewiring it to plug into my clothes dryer outlet, we were making pizza at a blazing 750 degrees. It was awesome.  My pizza making kicked up a couple of notches.

Having the new oven was cool for sure.  Having the technical ability to make pizzas better (at least I thought so) was cool however I was just about to learn the coolest part about making pizzas. It was at this time when I learned about what pizza really was to me.

From then on it was pizza at the Beutlers “full on”.  We started inviting larger groups of friends over to dinner. We were making a lot of pizzas for our friends and neighbors. Whenever family came into town it was time to make pizza.

We had a great time around our exceedingly large Ikea dinner table eating 10 to 15 pizzas at a sitting.  And while everybody lauded how much they enjoyed the pizza, what I learned was how much I enjoyed serving them.  I loved hearing folks say stuff like “the pizza was really good”, or “that was the best pizza ever”. I realized that this was not about my ego being stroked but that it was about me being able to help contribute to someone having a really good experience.

While opening SLAB for me has been indeed a business venture from my standpoint, it has been also a great opportunity to share with others what I consider is my best offering of a quality product and service.  It is very gratifying to hear when someone has had a good experience at SLAB.  The coolest part for me in this whole deal is the chance to serve my new friends and help them to have a good experience.  For me it has always been about the individual on the other side of the counter from me and giving them something just as good as or even better than what I would expect for myself.

- Eric

Julie, Eric, and Mike and Mary Metcalf