What's Good Dough?

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See a throwback of Kirk with Tony Gemignani

This is the first interview with Kirk and its a good one. In my opinion, our conversation clicked. He clearly has a deep knowledge of pizza and business and that is something I aspire to reach. I look up to Kirk a lot and I think it definitely shows in this episode. He is also the ideal person to take something like New York pizza and bring it to the Bay Area. I believe that because of his background and his way of analyzing a problem and bringing forth a solution, he was able to start an amazing business that has over 2000 Yelp reviews!

Learn what its like to quit a GREAT job and work for yourself. Learn what it takes to start a business and be an expert in your field. Learn about his Wall of Shame and why you should avoid it, and if you're on it, how you can potentially get yourself off!

Full Transcript Here

Eidref: What's happening, what's good though? It's your boy Eidref. Thank you very much for tuning in to another episode of the What's Good Dough podcast. If this is your first one, welcome. Don't worry, you haven't missed too much. But before listening to this one, I do recommend that you listen to the first episode it gives a little bit of background as to how I know the interview “he” that we are talking to today. His name is Kirk. He is the co-founder of a slice of New York now turned Co Op. but you know, Kirk and I go way back to last year when I tried to work with him. It was his wife Marguerite, who actually reached out to me when I was looking for a new way to get into pizza. And I was introduced to Kirk through her and we decided to talk about the position. Ultimately it did not fit, but as you can see that would not be the last time we talked. And fortunately, he agreed to come on this podcast. And I think after getting to know him a little bit more, he and his wife do great things for the community. And the mission that they are trying to pursue with this Co Op is amazing, which you will hear about in part two of the interview. And, they make amazing New York style pizza. Like you're not only going to get a product representative of New York, you're gonna get a bomb pizza that does it justice. Thank you very much for tuning in and please enjoy the show. So it kind of sounds like you are a solutions engineer.

Kirk: That's what I do. My card says just problem solver. That's what I do, you know. Whether it's at the shop level, whether it's day to day, real time or long term, that's just kind of what I like to get involved in, stuff that's uncharted territory. The kind of nebulous stuff. If it's uncharted territory is that means you don't have boundaries. You don't have limits, preconceived limits of what you can and can't do. And you can determine what you need to do based on what your requirements are and what you want to do and what you think is right.

@whatsgooddough

My first episode talks about my history with pizza and the nostalgia and comfort associated with it. I also dive into my relationship with pizza and touch on the goals and aspirations I have with my favorite food in the world. This intro also touches on what you should expect to come from the podcast as well as gives a brief summary of my relationship with the first podcast guest. Please also note, that this episode energy is a little low and slow and does not reflect the overall vibe of the rest of the episodes. My goal was to post this before my wedding anniversary (2/17) and so I was grinding away last night to finally get this out! Please take the time to listen to this quick episode and get a real understanding of the rest of the podcast through the interviews!

Full Transcript Here

Thank you so much for tuning in to the What's Good Dough podcast. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you share it. If you want to get in touch with me, follow us on Instagram at Whats Good Dough. And remember to always ask, what’s good dough? What's happening? What's good dough? My name is Eidref and I'm here to welcome you today to my podcast. This podcast is all about pizza. The reason I created this podcast was to learn from the people who make pizza happen. And that's not only restaurant owners, these pizza making people are consumers, right? You, the pizza eater is what drives pizza today. My main goal for this podcast is to learn everything I can about pizza. One day I want to open up my own pizza spot. And I think by interviewing pizza restaurant Tours, by interviewing other pizza lovers, and learning a little bit from pizza haters as well. I think I'm going to be able to provide a great quality product to people who can appreciate great quality pizza.

A little bit about myself, I eat pizza every day. I absolutely love it. It's been my favorite food since I was a child. You know, growing up, I literally lived off of pizza. My brother and I we would walk home from school and we would warm up some French bread pizza from Costco. I think pizza from Costco is definitely one of my earliest pizza memories. It's like you know, $10 slices. Oh, sorry. $10 pies, excuse me and $2 slices. Really hard to beat, especially with the convenience if you know, all you did was shop at Costco with your parents. Like literally my parents bought everything in bulk because, you know, we were a middle income family. And so you would see our freezers filled with French bread pizzas, pepperoni pizza, and hot pockets. And for a brief moment bagel bites, which my brother and I didn't really enjoy too much. We were more of a fan of pizza rolls, which you could only get at certain places. If you really wanted to get them in bulk, you'd have to get them at WinCo. But that wasn't readily available to us. And so Costco pizza was basically what I grew up with. I also grew up with round table pizza. My grandfather would swear by round table pizza and would always take us there and you know what? It was delicious. He would even grab like KFC chicken, and kind of have a pizza and chicken party every time we'd go and visit him.