(Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a series about opening a mobile pizzeria by Jason Cipriani, co-owner of Sips & Pies.)
On April 17, a lifelong dream of mine came true: I sold my first pizza. Actually, we sold 76 of them. It still doesn’t feel real. For the past two years, I’ve spent countless hours discussing, researching, dreaming, doubting, romanticizing and obsessing over what would ultimately become Sips & Pies – a mobile wood-fired pizzeria in Pueblo, Colorado, serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza – owned by my wife and myself.

The dream of owning a pizzeria started when I was in elementary school, after I spent a spring break working alongside my dad while he managed a local Pizza Hut. Not only did I love being able to eat all the pizza I wanted, but I vividly remember being fascinated by the process of making dough and how it ultimately transformed into pizza after a quick ride through the oven.

Jason Cipriani (Courtesy photo)

Then, of course, life happened. I grew up, got married, had kids and made a career for myself as a freelance technology journalist by testing, reviewing and reporting about tech products for a wide range of publications. Owning a pizzeria became nothing more than a fantasy. I didn’t want to be married to a brick-and-mortar location, and I had a job I truly loved.

All that changed when I had a Eureka! moment while eating leftover pizza I’d made in a tabletop pizza oven I was reviewing for Men’s Journal. The idea? Get a few portable pizza ovens, put them on a table underneath a tent and hold pop-up events. Easy peasy.

The Reality of Opening a Mobile Pizzeria

It wasn’t that easy, of course. The mere electrical requirements of running multiple pizza ovens was enough to send me back to the drawing board. Not to mention, during what turned out to be a very expensive phone call to the local health department, I learned that the table-and-tent idea wasn’t allowed in my county.

When I was younger, I worked in and around restaurants and catering. I even opened a drive-thru coffee shop when I was 20 years old, but my experience actually running a restaurant was very limited.

The journey to opening day has been long. To date, I’ve:

• Left my career in tech journalism partly to pursue my aspirations of opening a pizza business.
• Invested tens of thousands of dollars.
• Attended the International Pizza Expo (twice).
• Taken Siler Chapman’s class on opening a mobile pizzeria.
• Watched countless hours of YouTube videos.
• Bought a number of pizza-related books.
• Attended Wood Fired University.

I did all this in an effort to learn as much as I possibly could about a selling pizza anywhere I could park a truck or trailer. I can’t tell you how many times I considered giving up.

Mobile Pizzeria Decisions

Throughout the process, I’ve often joked with my wife that every time we make one decision, there are a million more waiting for us. It’s a joke that’s proved true time and time again, and it can be very overwhelming – to the point it’s paralyzing. Among those questions:

• Do I need to buy a truck and/or a trailer?
• What style of pizza should I serve?
• What about serving slices?
• What oven should I get?
• Where should I set up?
• Will I need a commissary?

In the coming weeks, I’m going to share my experience, detailing how we answered those questions, plus so many more. I’ll walk you through each major decision and milestone, along with our reasoning, mistakes and lessons learned.

Hopefully, by sharing my firsthand experience of turning a dream into a reality, I’ll help you avoid some of the same frustrations. I still can’t believe I own a pizzeria. Somebody pinch me!

JASON CIPRIANI is co-owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.