We recently connected with Brady Leffler and have shared our conversation below.
Brady, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I’ve always been obsessed with brands. Early me would draw the Lakers logo, Tommy Hilfiger, and KISS all over my school notebooks. Among my other many obsessions are food/bev, and music. Those are the three big pillars of my life and career. Everything revolves around those, and they each take turns at center stage in my life whenever they choose to. I have waited my whole life for the right moment to have my own “brand”. Aside from being in a couple cool bands in the past, only one of which had a cool logo, I finally had the perfect opportunity to build my brand in 2022. I was super inspired by the tiny pop-up businesses, specifically in food, that people were creating out of necessity and extra time on their hands during the pandemic. A micro bakery here, a pizzeria there. I had a year under my belt of sourdough bread baking, and had recently purchased a portable wood-fired pizza oven for all the excess sourdough I was making. It should be noted I was working full-time for the world’s largest Kombucha producer as head of product development, and my world was consumed with all things fermentation. So this ancient 200 year old sourdough starter I acquired at work, and subsequent sourdough bread baking obsession, was of no surprise to anyone around me. As we began having more and more intimate group gatherings, pizza was often on the menu and my vinyl collection was getting some very good use as I was entertaining often. I began drafting menus, and the name came to me very quickly and clearly: Hi-Fi Pizza Pi, and it was game on. I announced the concept on none other than Pi day (March 14) via social media, and had my first gig activating Hi-Fi on June 29th, ironically the day I’d put in my 2 weeks notice at my full-time job. From there it’s been a fun challenge to combine my love of food+beverage and music. The idea has manifested it’s way in many ways, namely the. nomenclature on my pizza menu, such as the “Sgt. PEPP” a Beatles nod, or the “Green N’ Gold” a riff on a Sam Sparro tune. Crafting menu items out of vintage album sleeves, hauling a portable turntable to DJ vinyl along-side a pizza pop-up, and of course decorating the operation with various Hi-Fi audio toys like our pay terminal JBL speaker box. All these fun little details create the experience I’m going for, making it fun for me to activate the concept (arguably most important), and provide my guests and friends good food and drink.
Brady, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am an LA transplant from the midwest born into hard work, adventure, and an endless quest to creativity and inspiration. I started playing music at a very young age, and eventually found a knack in cooking once I was old enough to work at my first restaurant in small town West Point, Nebraska. I dropped out of college at 19 to go on tour with rock bands and see the World, but always kept coming back to restaurants and bars to make ends meet financially in between. I continue that toggle to this day between food+bev and music, albeit under much different circumstances and degree. I left a big corporate job in 2022 as the head of product development at the World’s largest Kombucha producer to start my own business and give myself more freedom. I found during the pandemic that freedom is arguably the most important gift to hold on to for dear life, as allowing it to slip away felt as if it could have killed me. I saw some very creative ideas come to fruition during lockdown, and was inspired to let some of mine do the same. It had been about time, and I was facing many of my own challenges during that time. A pent up surge of creativity certainly burst out as a result and I was able to freely contract and consult with other beverage companies while I built my own brand, Hi-Fi Pizza Pi, a mobile pizzeria merging my love of food and music. I was able to take a concept that is beloved by all and put my own flavor on it, offering services not limited to private event catering, mobile pop-up, and private chef hospitality. In a time where even extremely successful and innovative restaurants are closing their doors, as they cannot survive and thrive, I continue to push on with a mobile concept that can. It may be more hustle and absolutely back-breaking work to build and tear down a mobile restaurant activation 5 nights a week at times, but I find joy and solace in the work. Perhaps due to my hard-working midwest roots and years as a touring musician. Some may call me a masochist, and to that I would not argue.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
I had a big jolt within my life during the pandemic, like most. Mine was unique in that I not only kept my job, but it began to take over my life. With newfound pressures of keeping a big company afloat during a global catastrophic event, stresses were high everywhere and I felt all of it. Not only did I know that I needed to find an exit strategy, I also knew that it was time I poured my heart and soul into something that was mine. Enough creating for others and giving away my ideas to benefit someone else’s dream. I was able to move to a new company doing similar types of beverage formulation and innovation as a contractor, which free’d me up a bit to work on other projects to get my creative juices flowing again. Motivation, and most importantly, inspiration was coming back. I was able to toggle amongst various food and beverage gigs, while building my own little business. Hi-Fi Pizza Pi was born just before leaving the corporate job, and quickly gained steam in my newfound freedom. No one could tell me what to do or how to do it with this, and I had full creative control. Finally, my own brand and a vehicle for my plethora of ideas! I took on a sales position with a beverage company in 2023 as my last little contract job before going 100% full-time into my mobile food concept. Booking tons of little gigs in the beginning allowed me to get the kinks out, and spread my name across LA and Santa Barbara. The gigs kept getting bigger and I was able to grow a small team of reliable and hungry gig-based artists. A year and a half into the business and I was at it full-time, training wheels off. 2024 provided a wild festival season kicking off with NO VALUES put on by Goldenvoice where we served over 550 pies in one day at a punk rock music festival in Pomona. From there, we tackled food and wine festivals, night markets, street fairs, and beyond proving that we can take anything on and make it happen. Facing the larger challenges, navigating through them, and surviving them has made us stronger and resilient enough to continue forward with a bigger, better, and more efficient operation providing continuous higher quality food and experience.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson I had to unlearn is that you need to “get a real job” or work for someone else to be a societal normie. Everything in my being struggled to conform to a Monday-Friday, 9-5 corporate job between 2017–2022, but I somehow made it out of there alive, and eventually turned my life around into my own and thriving. A lot of alcohol abuse occurred in that time to cope with trying to conform to something I was not. Before that I was a touring musician, and working late nights with very flexible schedules at restaurants and bars, not to mention all sorts of other odd gigs. Once I saw people’s lives crumble, stand very still, and then change dramatically during the pandemic, I knew that I could do that too. I knew I had talents, I knew I had ideas, but I didn’t know what the hell to do with them or how to start a business. So I just started. I started small and slow, and just put one foot in front of the other betting on myself. I think the biggest downfall with people creating their own thing is their self-doubt. I had plenty of that, but somehow my trust in myself breaking through that prevailed. Once you start stacking wins, they compound and the snowball goes into effect. Today I am a free man, I own my own company, and I don’t owe anybody anything, and that is invaluable.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hifipizzapi.com
- Instagram: @hifipizzapi @thebeveragejunkie
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/bradyleffler
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/hi-fi-pizza-pi-los-angeles-2?uid=m3LSKBy1xcl-PLH-YGQX_w&utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
Image Credits
Elizabeth Wiltshire, Cameron Jordan