00:00 My name is Dennis and I own the Pizza Cult here at the Barrows Market.
00:05 I was in sales for about 10 years and never enjoyed it for a second.
00:11 I travelled around a lot, so I lived in Australia for a little while and I lived in Canada for
00:16 a little while.
00:17 I did sales because it was an easy job to get, but then once I moved to Glasgow, I tried
00:25 to get into something different.
00:26 After lockdown, I was making pizzas and sourdough starters all through lockdown.
00:32 When it came to, I turned 30, I was like, "What do I actually want to do with my life?"
00:37 Someone jokingly suggested I should be a pizza chef because I was making loads of pizzas.
00:39 I was like, "Maybe I could do that, actually."
00:42 So I made a CV and put it out to a few places.
00:50 One of the guys, the owner of Strip Joint in Glasgow, in Finiston, he invited me for
00:55 an interview.
00:56 He read my CV wrong and thought I was a real pizza chef, but I'd put home pizza chef.
01:00 So he invited me in and then realised.
01:01 I explained to him the dream and what I want to do and all that.
01:06 He was like, "It'll bring me on as a trial and to see how I go."
01:11 The starter was useless.
01:12 I couldn't even get the pizza on the peel.
01:15 It was really, really bad.
01:16 But I think he just liked my attitude or whatever, so he invited me in to start and I was just
01:22 washing dishes for a month and then eventually worked my way up to running their pizza section
01:27 after about six months.
01:29 And then after another six months, I got the head chef job at Franco Manca.
01:32 I did that for about a year and then the opportunity came to open this place.
01:37 So I was just like, "Yeah, jump there."
01:38 So I just bought the oven and bought all the bits and then here we are.
01:41 The plan was to get a van, which I still might do eventually, but then I just came down the
01:46 Barrows one weekend and it just seemed like a really cool place.
01:50 I don't know, I just love the vibe of the place.
01:52 So I spoke to...
01:53 They're gone now, but the people that owned Rome Coffee around the corner, I spoke to
01:57 them and I was like, "How do I get in here?"
01:58 And they gave me the numbers and we just back and forth for a few months and then eventually
02:02 I just came here.
02:03 It's been great.
02:04 It's been busy.
02:05 It's been good.
02:06 They went with the Pride Market last week as well, which was really, really busy.
02:13 The issue is selling out too early.
02:14 That's kind of my problem.
02:16 So it's hard to gauge how busy it's going to be and I don't really want to sell out,
02:21 but I don't want to be wasting food either.
02:22 I feel like I'm constantly learning the dough every weekend.
02:26 It feels like every weekend is a different challenge of how to manage the dough.
02:30 This one's actually really popular for vegans because it's a vegan one.
02:34 The marinara.
02:35 It's just like garlic, basil, herbs and olive oil.
02:38 All the ingredients I get, I try and get the highest quality I can.
02:42 So even something as simple as that, just tomato sauce, no cheese or anything, it sells
02:45 really well because it's just good fresh ingredients.
02:48 Just get inspiration from Instagram or just from places I eat out.
02:52 Sometimes I'll eat a sandwich somewhere and I'm like, "This would be a nice pizza," and
02:55 I'll just play around with it.
02:56 I think they're gone now as well, but there was a cafe in Denison called East Coffee and
03:01 they used to do these amazing bagels and they did a brie and bacon and jam bagel.
03:06 It was amazing.
03:08 So I just want to mention my girlfriend, Emma, who has been amazing to help me.
03:12 We just started this.
03:13 She's been down on the weekends.
03:14 She works nine to five during the week, so she's come down on the weekends on her days
03:17 off to come and help, which has been great.
03:18 She's been helping me with a lot of social media stuff and just been amazing.
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