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

Eric, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Making pizza for me was something that I grew to enjoy doing when I got laid off from my brewing job during the COVID shut down. At the time I was living in Delaware and there was a bit of a void of really good pizza. I started very small with sheet pan sourdough and eventually moved on to making cast iron pan pizza and New York round pies. I spent days researching making pizza dough while working on recipes 4-5 times a week. I bought the book “Pizza Camp” by Joe Beddia and do not think I’ve put that book down since. It’s an incredible book with so many good ideas and also helped me to learn a lot of cooking techniques for pizza and more!

Before I started creating pies of my own, I’d lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and loved going out for pizza. I still remember the very first bite from a shop there called Iron Born and how I had never tasted anything like it. It was the big square slice that looked so daunting and this melty cheese all over with lots of sauce, very in your face. Then at that first bite I understood – it was so well balanced and that dough! So light and airy with layers upon layers of flavor! It changed my whole perspective on pizza and food. So, after moving to the suburbs outside of Denver, Colorado and receiving my first Detroit style pan as a gift from a buddy, I kept experimenting. After some time I felt very confident in having pizza parties when friends or family would visit from out of town and eventually started sharing my pizza with people in the industry. I felt my super light and airy pizza had a place out here that would stand out among the crowd. So once I got that pan I knew the kind of pizza I wanted to make. Thankfully I had been making cast iron pizza which already hit that quality, so I started adapting my recipes into a bigger pan and learned how to create that balance of cheese and sauce that I so desired. I got really excited to continue to grow my skills while sharing with the lovely people in the area who keep coming out week after week to try whatever whacky new specialty I had going on!

We’ve gotten very lucky to be able to meet the owners Maria and Lenny of Romero’s K9 Club and Taphouse in Lafayette Colorado. Not only do they run one of the best tap lists/beer bars around but they also allowed us to use their food truck so that we could start our small little pizza slice pop ups. Beer is still very much a part of my life so being able to pair our slices and salads with world class beer is such an amazing opportunity. They are some of the nicest people in the industry and the best food truck roomies we could ask for!

The team at Cellar West was also crucial to helping me finalize my idea and still to this day people I can go to for advice. Daniel and Zach are also two of the best people in the industry and their support has been crucial to helping me formulate this plan.

The person I’m the most thankful for her honesty and the biggest overall support is my wife Kate! She has been there for every pizza and is never afraid to tell me if an idea is too whacky or help keep me grounded with all my ideas. She knows the industry so well and being from New York really knows her pizza. Hearing from her that this was one of the best slices she has ever had wads the biggest confidence booster and helped me finally decide to open this up!Without her I would not have been able to get this off the ground or out of our kitchen.

The first ever opening menu included a specialty with lemon ricotta, red onion, and hot Italian sausage fresh from a butcher. That pizza I had something similar years before in Pittsburgh at another Detroit-style spot called Michigan and Trumbull. Bright and zesty pizza with cream garlicky sauce… oh man did that pizza not leave my mind for years. Pittsburgh shaped me as a pizza chef (well and also years of living in Philly spoiled by some of the best pizza in the world).

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I mostly got into this industry as a home pizza chef who continues to tweak and improve the recipe pizza week after week. I come from a background of music (I studied jazz guitar at university) and brewing beer (I worked in beer production at a number of Pittsburgh and Delaware breweries), and I feel like both of those help shape what Weedhart has become. In Jazz, improvising while focusing on staying technical and focused on details has helped me reach for new ingredients or techniques I wouldn’t normally use. Being from beer, the idea of mixing many different grains and hops to create the profile I’m looking for very easily translated to making pizza. It is all working with layers and flavors and learning how to blend them into what you desire. I’m incredibly proud of the work we have all put into this and how we continue to improve every aspect while still reaching for new stuff to put on our pizza while never compromising our quality. We are small and family-owned and put so much love into every single slice. We only use the highest quality ingredients and source as much as possible locally. We love to work outside the box of normal pizza making and never aim to be considered boring or predictable. That doesn’t stop us from making a cheese slice our best slice, and it gives us a perfect canvas to continue creating.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

We use a lot of social media to try and reach new clients but the best source for us has been popping up at new spots and word of mouth helping to spread the word. Being at a new place has allowed us to gain followers who will come to us no matter where we are that might not have gone there in the first place, which is great for us and the place we are popping up at. Helping grow this community is important to us, especially since we’re in a small town where we know our neighbors and they bring new faces. It fills my heart when people tell me their friend or family member recommended us and they couldn’t help but check us out. Even better, sometimes those same folks come back with a large group of people that they had to share us with.

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

We try to stand out by always using the best and locally sourced ingredients when we can whether that is Ezzo brand for our pepperoni or mixing beautiful King Arthur flour with freshly milled wheat from a local grower. There is no ceiling on how far you can source locally, especially because we’re lucky to have farm stands and local millers near us. Our clients see each week how much time is put into sourcing like this. It’s not easy but it’s super worth it. Like Chris Bianco says “Shit in, Shit Out!”

We also never cut corners when it comes to our quality. Our dough is always presented fresh after a long fermentation that brings out the complexity of flavor, and our sauce is always hand made from the finest ingredients.

And finally, we’re not afraid to do two things really well: push the limits on what pizza can be, and consistently deliver the best, classic slice of red Detroit-style cheese pizza we can come up with.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weedhartpies/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weedhartpies/
• Other: Email : Weedhartpies@gmail.com https://linktr.ee/weedhartpies

Image Credits
Kate Weed Eric Eckhart