The Pizza Shed story, from humble beginnings... from the shed!
Thando & James… friends, house mates, and now business partners…
It’s the 1st of May in 2020 and James & Thando have come to the realisation that their 3 week forced holiday from their respective restaurant positions is going to be extended by quite some time. After enjoying far too much time on the couch over the three previous wee
ks, their minds start to drift from what is displayed on the TV screen.
Another month goes by and the country's situation continues to deteriorate significantly. With debt mounting due to no form of income whatsoever, the boys are scratching their heads, so to speak. James’s second business 'Rosebank Brewing Co.' is completely outlawed and on the bones of its arse. Out of a shear necessity to survive, one housemate says to the other: “I’m going to build a pizza oven in the garden shed, and I’ve come up with the name 'Pizza Shed,' and I want you to join me, are you in?” I can still see the shrug of his shoulders in the lounge, as if to say: “F* it, I’ve got nothing to lose, I’m in!!”
With hardly two coins to rub together, we got to work stripping the garden shed behind the house; repainting, wiring, cleaning and building. She wasn’t much to look at but she was functional, and boy could we operate in there! With a stainless steel table and one household fridge, which was older than James and shorter than Thando, all we needed was logo. We asked our third house mate and creative wizard Matt to design something sexy, and launched our first marketing effort on Instagram! After some game-plan chats over a few treasured beers and one or two days of trials, it was time to pull the trigger. We had winged it until now and we weren’t stopping here, so we saw Friday the 31st of July as opening day and decided to jump into the deep end.
Day 1 arrived and Thando, James and Lwando, an employee of James from his old Kloof Street shop, didn't know what to expect. The day kicked off and we absolutely pumped! We must have sent out over 60 pizzas, which - for then - was 50 more than we thought we'd sell! Controlled chaos is probably the only honest account of what service was like in Pizza Shed for the first few weeks.
Lwando was stretching, James was cooking, Thando was boxing and dealing with orders. We were slinging pizzas out of our shed, and you guys were loving it!
We got strange looks from neighbours, from customers, from delivery drivers, but we had a goal to create the best pizza in Cape Town and nothing was going to stop us. We worked all day every day, 7 days a week, for a good few months, and we were loving it (most of the time). It wasn't too long after that when we welcomed Khonji to our team, and we could finally enjoy a few hours off each day.
Tomorrow we turn 1 years old…much has changed since day one. We’ve moved into a commercial space down the road, we’ve got branded boxes arriving soon, a sign outside our own shop, an online store, and now our own Merchandise in the form of our 'Origins Tee'. The shirt was designed by Matt, our housemate at the time, who has since moved out. It features the two founders of Pizza Shed, as well as James’s dog Lily (head of quality control), set in the little shed where it all began.
We set out to create the best pizza in Cape Town , and many have said we’ve done that, but we continue to learn each day and aim to improve our product. Whether you knew what you were supporting or didn’t, we would like to say a massive THANK YOU, because without your unwavering support, there is no way we would be where we are today, and trust us, we are just getting started! ;)
Pizza Shed
