PUYALLUP, Wash. — Pizza is probably not the first food to come to mind when you think of food trucks. But Samuel and Melissa Ranz want to get their pizza into your head.
"This is Just a Pizza My Mind. We like to have our menu catered to every market," said Samuel. "So, gluten-free, friendly, vegan, we have all of your classic pizzas, but we know that there are so many pizza options that we want to be different."
If their Mystery Machine-blue food truck named ‘Jackie’ isn't different enough, the pies they put out will prove it.
"There's really nothing that we're scared to put on a pizza," said Samuel. "'The Hot Box' which is going to be a red-sauce base dice pepperoni, sliced sausage, sliced salami, banana peppers with an agave drizzle and ricotta on top. 'The Wake & Bake' is our twist on biscuits and gravy on pizza. We make a country sausage gravy base and then we do more sausage, bacon with some pepper and then cheddar cheese."
Melissa added, "'Because I Got High,' that's a cream cheese base with dill pickles and topped with some pizza cheese. When it comes out of the oven it gets topped with Flaming Hot Cheetos dust. People always come up to the menu and they're like, I love the names, they're so creative."
The names of their pizzas may be punny, but this husband and wife duo are serious when it comes to how their pizzas are prepared.
"We've got our great big wood fire oven which is [named], 'Manuel,' and he takes about 90 minutes to warm up each day," said Melissa. "That's about 800 degrees that he's at. We use a combination of cherry and apple woods for our fire."
"Everything is made to order so you place your order at the front window. We start stretching the dough, making it, it's all made to order fresh by hand," Samuel said. "It only takes about two minutes, maybe three minutes, to cook. So, from start to finish, we can generally have an order out in about five to seven minutes depending on how many items are on each."
Though Melissa and Samuel have only been putting out pies for a short time, their Just a Pizza My Mind customers love the couple's out-of-the-box approach to pizza.
"All of this is our recipe. People actually can taste the love in the pizza. And it just means so much to us that people come back and tell us that all the time," Melissa said.
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