We were lucky to catch up with Lonny Geller recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lonny, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Hello! In the fall of 2018, I landed a job at Pizza School NYC. Believe it or not, it really was a place of pizza education, where one learns how to make gourmet pizza applicable to their home oven. It’s a genius concept: learn the basic ins and outs of pizza making and become an at-home pizza expert. Every day we had a pizza party. Whether it was a corporation doing a team outing, a Saturday night date night, or a Sunday afternoon family outing for Uncle Steve’s 70th… all walks of life took classes at Pizza School NYC and I had the honor of leading Parmigiano Reggiano demos, pizza sauce how-to’s, and more. Pizza School is where I learned how to make pizza from scratch for the first time. Where I learned why you use this flour for this oven and so on. So for the next 12 months, I became well-equipped with both, the figurative and literal, tools of the trade.
Fast forward to the most wonderful time in our lives… 2020. The year of Clorox-ing your groceries, socially distanced patio dinners with your parents, long walks every day because you’ve never had to take a long walk before, and everything in between. 2020 was also the year I started making *a lot* of pizza at home, just like everyone else and their infant sourdough starters.
Up until October 2020, I was employed by one of Italy’s most notorious and beloved charcuterie producers. I was the Jewish kid from New Jersey selling cured pork products on the streets of New York. I was thriving. I was collaborating on recipes with these wildly talented Italian chefs featuring our products. I had a trip booked to Las Vegas for the 2020 Pizza Pasta Expo which was, you guessed it, canceled because of Covid. So much to my lack of surprise when I got laid off in October that year, I needed to figure out a way to pay rent. Because, you know, landlords don’t care if you lose your job. This was also when being on unemployment through NYC wasn’t what it was in March when people were getting more money on unemployment than they were when they were working. I needed to figure out how to make money and support myself until I found a new job. So I started selling Detroit pizzas out of my one-bedroom in Brooklyn.
People actually schlepped all the way out to where I was (Flatbush) to pick up homemade Detroit-style pizzas, as well as 14-inch round pies baked on the Baking Steel (shout-out to Baking Steel for elevating for the home pizza game!). For the first time ever in my life, people were handing me cash for my own food product, not someone else’s. It felt great. But it wasn’t enough… until someone called me asking if I could come to their apartment and bake pizzas there for their group of friends. Yes, yes I can. So I did. And then I saw how profitable they could be. If I really was going to support myself by making pizzas for people, I was going to have to get more pizza parties. So I got another one through word of mouth. And then another. And a few more, all in the winter of 2020. But then things came to a halt when I got a new job in January 2021. And I didn’t have the financial need for pizza parties anymore. And I missed them, a lot.
In the Summer of 2021, I was standing outside of F&F Pizza in Carroll Gardens with some pizza friends of mine… being silly, eating pizza, and having a good time. This is when this woman entered the conversation and asked if she heard me right when I said I’ve done at-home pizza parties, although at this point it has been months since I did one, as it’s way cooler to brag about private pizza parties than being a Sales Rep for Too Good To Go (shout-out to my TGTG family and the amazing mission they do of reducing food waste around the world. They do amazing work.). I told her she heard correctly and that I still do pizza parties. She was very intrigued. We exchanged contact information and went about our ways. I remember she was with her two kids and husband. I figured I’d never see them again.
Fast forward to August 2022. I’m now starting a new job working sales for Table 87 and their frozen pizza line. It was towards the end of August I get a call from this woman with a Brooklyn area code asking if this was Lonny Geller. I let her know it was me and she introduces herself as Jenny, the woman from F&F in 2021. It took me a moment to put two and two together but I remembered. Jenny was reaching out, as promised, regarding a private pizza party for her husband’s birthday. It has now been over one year since I’ve done a pizza party… I kind of accepted the fact that the world was getting back to normal and I’d be working soul-sucking sales jobs for the rest of my time in NYC. But when I got that call from Jenny, I jumped out of my seat and told her, “Absolutely, I would LOVE to make pizzas for you guys”. We set a date, agreed on a price, and made it happen.
The party was perfect. The pizzas came out delicious. My dough was feeling amazing. The toppings worked and were very well received. The kids loved it. Jenny’s friends loved it. It was like riding on Cloud 9. Lonny was back, baby. It’s important to acknowledge that in the (nearly) 2 years between this party and my parties in the Winter of 2020, there were some changes and upgrades to my “brand”. My pizza dough recipe improved significantly. My Instagram following grew and I had a much more focused brand, which was heavy on Italian food and culture. So when I did this party for Jenny and used my Instagram to document it and showcase what was served, others wanted in…
One year later, I have successfully become 100% self-employed through these pizza parties. People cannot seem to get enough of them, and I don’t blame them. My elevator pitch is simply, “Restaurant-quality Pizza in the comfort of your own home”. It doesn’t get much better than that. People love pizza. And eat it every week, especially here in NYC. But sometimes people want to do something different. They want to bring the restaurant TO them, instead of bringing themselves to the restaurant. They want an experience they feel they’re the only ones in this massive city getting. And who doesn’t love pizza, especially when it’s minutes from coming out of the oven?!
Lonny, 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?
I turn people’s homes into gourmet pizzerias for the night. When someone books me, all I tell them I need is a working oven and counter space. I bring the rest. I bring the Baking Steel (similar to a stone), that heats up with your oven and replicates the 500F floor of your favorite pizzeria’s professional oven. I bring my ingredients that I am VERY proud of. California tomatoes (my favorite brands are Stanislau and Bianco di Napoli), domestic Mozzarella (Liuzzi from CT, Grande from Wisconsin), flours from Vermont and Washington State, dried oregano, and crushed red pepper from Sicily and Southern Italy. Working in the Italian food scene in NYC introduces you to some of the most talented chefs, pizza makers, and business owners in the world. With that comes their secrets, go-to brands for products, philosophies on cooking, secret techniques, and so much more. They become an endless encyclopedia of knowledge that they’re happy to share with you if you play your cards right. But it’s what YOU do with that information that truly matters. I credit these mentors and industry leaders for their unapologetic ways of being different and going the extra mile to create an exceptional product. I channel this into my own operation daily.
What I am most proud of is my pizza dough. My dough is a 5 year work-in-progress that seems to get better each time I make some, albiet a couple of silly mistakes along the way that are crucial for growth and learning. In my opinion, dough is the most important ingredient of a pizza. Just like bread is the most important ingredient of a sandwich. It can make or break the final product. And I have had so many “broken” pizzas because there was no love in the dough. The dough should be its own complex and mysterious journey that you need to spend a lot of time on to truly understand its glutinous intricacies and wheaty ways. I feel as if I have reached a point where I am very happy with my dough and would be more than comfortable making it for a World Champion Pizza Judge for what would be the most constructive criticism I would receive thus far on it!
When I do these pizza parties, my guests cannot believe what they’re eating. It’s safe to assume that some of them have never had pizza like this before! And I’d like to think it’s because of my dough. No dough I serve gets less than 48 hours in the refrigerator to ferment and develop flavor and character. I’m using only unbleached and unbromated flours to make my product as clean and digestible as possible. Society sees pizza as junk food but it doesn’t have to be. Just like any dish… if you use only the cleanest and well-sourced ingredients, nothing could be that bad for you. I feel very strongly about this mentality and apply it to my cooking wherever possible. I will never serve you something made from ingredients you can’t pronounce, except ‘Nduja ☺️
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Word-of-Mouth!! You truly cannot beat it. Word of mouth is how bands like Dave Matthews Band, Phish, the Grateful Dead, and Dispatch got to where they are today. It’s powerful, people trust their friends and family, and when someone is excited about something… it’s easy to feel that energy.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Charming my clients. People will always rave about someone that made them feel good, seen, and complimented. Providing my clients with not only pizza but with fun conversation, loose and silly banter, and a deep human connection goes much farther than the product you feed them. The goal is for clients to get hooked on what you bring to the table and insist to their network that they MUST experience it too.
Contact Info:
- Website: londreleats.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/londreleats
Image Credits
Andrew Link Photography