Pizza truck owner Louise Joseph said she remembers the first time she realized people, even in apizza-crazed New Haven, liked her wood-fired pies.
Joseph said her family told her people were lining up during the city鈥檚 Apizza Feast in 2015. She thought they were being nice; she was wrong.
鈥淚 was like, Oh, thanks,鈥� Joseph said. 鈥淎nd like, no, no, no, we're concerned. It's really long.鈥�
Joseph, having barely started out in her new business , after leaving a corporate catering job. She soon realized she had a hit on her hands.
Now in her 10th year, Joseph says she鈥檚 been able to weather a pandemic, growing pains, and skepticism from some pizza lovers in the mostly white, male-dominated space.
She credits her success to support from other women who also own pizza businesses and camaraderie from other pizzerias across the state.
Joseph said it took her three years to get the dough just right. She makes personal wood-fired pies. New Haven style pies are traditionally baked in coal-fired ovens. The crust isn鈥檛 as thin, she said, compared to New Haven style, and isn鈥檛 crunchy.
It took her a long time to perfect her recipe, which she also learned from a Fairfield restaurant.
鈥淓veryone always comments; the dough, the dough, the dough,鈥� Joseph said. 鈥淎nd I did work on that dough for three years, while the truck was being built.鈥�
While she has a menu, most customers, she said, gravitate towards her margherita pies.
That鈥檚 not the only thing that sets her apart. Joseph is also of Cape Verdean descent. She grew up in New Haven loving New Haven style apizza.
But she admits, some are skeptical of her pies.
鈥淚 just laugh it off, because what else am I going to do,鈥� Joseph said. 鈥淚 think it's funny.鈥�
August is also National Black Business Month. More Black-owned businesses have opened over the last few years according to the U.S., compared
But women are still underrepresented in those spaces and pizza isn鈥檛 an exception. Joseph credited the Women鈥檚 Business Development Council (WBDC) in 黑料新闻 with helping her business.
She also said a group called have been an invaluable resource since many pizza spaces are still dominated by men.
But while she says 黑料新闻 has been supportive, some customers have asked her why she decided to make pizzas.
She said it speaks to a larger conversation over who gets to enter certain culinary spaces.
鈥淧eople think you have to be of that ethnicity to make that type of food, whatever it is,鈥� Joseph said. 鈥漅ick Bayless and Bobby Flay, they're making Mexican food and Latin food, and no one bats an eye at them.鈥�
Her pies, she says, regularly change their minds. But one group of customers, she says, is more blunt than most, in the best way possible.
She did a soft opening near Bruce Park in Greenwich, nearly 10 years ago. She was parked near a quinceanera happening nearby. She gave a slice to a boy.
She had spent years perfecting the dough. Then she saw him again.
鈥淗e came back to the truck, 鈥榟e's like, that was the best pizza I ever had,鈥� Joseph said.
