We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brandon Covington a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Brandon, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

There have been a couple unexpected challenges. The major challenge has been the lack of knowledge on how to run a business and understanding that not everyone is for you. If you are going to partner with anyone, it’s imperative to read the contract thoroughly as well as having a lawyer read through it. If it sounds too good to be true, it likely isn’t. Another one, most days you win, but there are days you don’t. It doesn’t happen often, but at times, an event is not a success. For example, we’ve had to leave an event because the electricity wasn’t working, so we lost money that day. It’s just a part of the learning process.

Brandon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Brandon, I’m a husband, dad, business owner and artists. Fun fact, I have 5 siblings and there are 2 set of twins, me being one of the sets. I love any creative endeavor such as music, culinary, design and architectural.

I started my business when my wife was pregnant with Lil Bear; she caving pizza a lot! We’re both vegan & it was really hard finding a good vegans pizza. My wife suggest I make my own pizza since I like making food from scratch. I did some research & I came up with amazing results. I had family & friends tryout the my pizza & they were really impressed with the flavor & recommended I start selling my pizza. This motivated me to start my own business. The name came for the business came from being called Bear by my family & when my wife was pregnant, we didn’t know if we’re having a boy or girl but if it was a boy, his middle name would be Bear. We had a boy…Aiden Bear was born & that’s how Bear Pizzeria was born.

My love for cooking as a result, in my opinion I have the best gourmet vegan pizza in Atlanta! Honestly if I never mention it’s vegan to customer they would never know it’s vegan.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I graduated high school, I didn’t want to take the college route so I worked in the warehouse industry for over a decade. Once my wife was pregnant, we decided I would be stay home with the baby which ultimately gave birth to Bear Pizzeria 15 months after after my son was born. I never thought I’d own a business, but once Lil Bear came, my whole universe changed, I wanted to leave something for him. I wanted to be able to teach him the things I wasn’t taught.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

First, we started taking orders via DM on Instagram which then lead to doing events throughout Greater Atlanta. What help build us a reputation further was when my wife posted online about 5 important facts about us using specific hashtags which caught the attention of a local grocery store. This started our journey for our frozen pizzas that we will continue to expand.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Bearpizzeriavegan.com
• Instagram: @Bearpizzeria
• Facebook: @Bearpizzeria

Image Credits
Maja Covington Brandon Covington