The Kind of Customer Every Pizzeria Wants - Frank Zocco

In this episode of the Pizza King Podcast, I talk with Frank Zocco from Dough Daddy Cooks and Slice Mob about pizza, community, and supporting local shops the right way. We get into positive reviews, ingredient quality, what real pizza people look for, and practical advice for anyone thinking about opening a pizzeria. Good conversation. Real lessons. A strong one for pizza owners, operators, and managers. 

Connect with Frank Zocco online:
Follow Frank for pizza reviews, recipes, Slice Mob gatherings, and community updates. 

Website: https://www.doughdaddycooks.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doughdaddycooks/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Doughdaddycooks
Dough Daddy Cooks Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/697421286722589/
Slice Mob Events: https://www.doughdaddycooks.com/the-slice-mob-gatherings-past-events
Email: mailto:Frank@doughdaddycooks.com 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, the first thing I when I first walk in, I look at the restaurant, I kind of get the vibe of the restaurant. Right. So I I that to me, like if you read any of my views, I always talk about the vibe. What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Because you know, a lot of people write about, oh, this pizza's great, you should try it. Okay. Well, when I walk through the door, like, you know, when like you walk through the door, it you can smell the wood, like, okay, and there's a wood-fired oven here. You know, so you I it's kind of what vibe is it trying to get across?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

All right. Welcome to the Pizza King podcast. I'm your host, Hyrule Reid, joined today by special guest Frank Zacco from Frank, where are you from? I'm from Connecticut. From Connecticut. Connecticut. Pizza Capital of the country. I was just gonna say that's pizza capital. It's from the pizza capital of the world, Connecticut. Absolutely. Frank is a is a is a food enthusiast, um, you know, content creator, reviewer, barbecue judge, which I really want to get into that. Uh all-around lover of you know, all things pizza and food in general. Frank, welcome to the to the Pizza King Podcast. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Tell us tell us who you are and what and exactly what you do. I I see from your title there, CFPU. I know what you do, but what is that that brought us here together?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah. So yeah, I've been a financial planner for 30 plus years, you know, love what I do, but I've also had a passion to cook my whole life, right? And you know, coming from an Italian family, a family of cooks and chefs, it's just it's food's always been ingrained into who I am. And and a couple years ago, I really got disenchanted with what's going on in the world and and the ugliness. And I'm like, you know, we gotta like, we need to bring people together. And what better to do that than food?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

So I just started, you know, just jumping in and and you know, I've always I've I've been a writer as a writer in college, so I like doing my food reviews. Um, and then someone said, well, you should have a kind of a kind of an online personality. So that's where I came up with dough daddy, because I'm a dad and I manage money and I make dough. So that's kind of a a play on what I do. Yeah, like that. And then I, you know, I have a group of friends and we've been to we've been friends for 50 plus years. And we used to get together, yeah, we get together four or five times a year, the, you know, Super Bowl parties, weekend bar, you know, like a summer barbecue. But I'm like, guys, we're not getting any younger. We got to do this monthly. And what better place? We're in Connecticut. Let's just try a different pizza place every month. So that's where the slice mob came in. So the slice mob is just my group of friends that we get together once a month and we go out and we check out different pizza places. We try to stay away from the big commercial ones, you know, like the Holy Trinity. But we uh we always try to find the mom and pop shops. And a couple of us even kind of go out on recon missions, and that's fun. Like we try to find places that are off the hidden path, hidden gems that can accommodate uh a group our size. Because it it started out at probably about three people, and uh lately it's been 15 to 20 people show up. So I can't show up at a last minute to mom and pop place and say, hey, here we are. So I always give them a heads up, and I'm like, if you can accommodate us, great. We're not looking for breaks, we're not looking for discounts, we're just we just want to have a good time, and if you're okay with that, and everyone has been wonderful. And then what we do after every every lunch, everyone throws in a little bit of money and we make a donation to uh a hunger organization. So we try to we try to turn it into something good. The majority of us are or have been first responders, so you know, police, fire, ambulance, and uh, we always try to give back to the community. So that's kind of a way we get together, enjoy our friendship, and then make it worthwhile. And then from there I just started doing videos and love to cook. I've got culinary training and I do, you know, kind of cooking videos and still trying to find my niche there, but it's I'm just I'm just having a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

That that does sound like a whole lot of fun. I would love to be able to get all of my friends together once a month, have some pizza, make a difference in the community, and just kind of just have fun with my people.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah. Life's too short not to.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Where when was the what was the first place that you guys decided to, you know, take the take the three-man slice mob to?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

So it's funny. We ended up at a place called Fuco's in Cheshire, Connecticut. And it was just the three of us, three of us went because no one else could make it that day. And it was really before we even called ourselves the slice mob. So three of us went and we're like, this is cool, right? And then the next month we went to Zapartis and it got a little bit bigger. And uh, and then the next month, I'm like, you know, we're we're getting some momentum here. Let's so that's when I came up with the name Slice Mob, exploring the world one slice at a time. We went to a little place in Durham, Connecticut called Car Mines. And this was, I'd never never been to Car Mines, but I'd heard a lot about it. So one of my buddies pulls up, he calls me, says, Frank, there's no place to sit inside. It's really a takeout. And it was December and it was raining outside. And I'm like, oh no, what are we gonna do? Right. So we all get in there, and there's probably eight of us. And we took up the kind of the whole counter area. And heath, the owner, is like, guys, just relax, have fun, don't worry about it, don't sweat it. And it was, it was just so much fun. And it was the first time that I realized the impact of social media on this because I had posted on a national pizza group just for Haas. I'm like, hey, if there's anybody in Durham who's around, you come join the slice mob. We'd love to meet up with some some other pizza fans. Not thinking anything of it. So we walk in and and the owner Heath is there and he says, uh, yeah, you know, my son told me you guys were coming. I'm like, how does your son? And my buddy Bri's like, Frank, you posted it. I'm like, people actually read that? It was like, wow, because you know, my age, my generation, I just I'm like, yeah, it's you know, that whole posting in YouTube and all that. So I'm like, uh, whatever. I I didn't fully get it. And uh I'm like, wow, so actually people do read this and they do just kind of grew from there. And uh he accommodated us and we just had a great time. I'm like, all right, and it just it kept getting bigger and bigger. So that's that's kind of how we started. But you know, Vuko's is a great place. We ended up going back um a couple months ago. I reached out to George the owner, and I'm like, hey, listen, you are a first stop, and I'm up to like 15, 20 people. We and it's a small place. I'm like, can you accommodate? He's like, absolutely. And uh he's like, I've actually seen what you do online and I really respect it. And he's like, Yeah, come on down. So I went in, he took me in back. We took pictures, videos. So yeah, it it's a lot of fun. And now, you know, well, most of the places know that we're coming and they know who we are. And again, we're not looking for any giveaways, any discounts. We just we want to support small businesses and then we want to give a little bit back to the community.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

I think that's a, you know, uh the the biggest difference between what we see now with social media and food influencers per se, where they're looking to, I don't know, looking to to make some money or charge a restaurant or let me give you some exposure. You guys are just honestly to me, what you're doing, you're the you're the the kind of customer that every owner wants to see come in the door. Someone who does it, who's just doing it for the love. You're not looking for a deal, you're not looking for a coupon, you're not looking to, you know, tear a business down or hurt anything in any way, you're just looking to to lift everybody up. How did how did you guys decide that that was, you know, the direction that you wanted to take it in?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

You know, it was just it just kind of happened that way. And I, you know, I'm the writer of the group and I've always done I've been doing reviews for a while, and I've always made it a point. If I have a problem with you, if you own a restaurant, I'm gonna talk to you personally. I'm gonna talk to the manager, the chef, the owner, and I'm not gonna go public with that because everyone has an off day. And what ended up happening is I just I only post positive reviews. If there's an issue, you and I have it one-on-one. And if it reoccurs and it is what it is, I just don't go back. You know, there I think I've in my whole life, I think I've written two bad reviews, and these restaurants I will never set foot in again. I'm not gonna say who they are, but they're not pizza places. But it was just one of those things. And, you know, we're all at a point in our life where most of us are close to retirement. I own my own business, I control my calendar, make a good living. I don't need handouts. Some of my buddies are already retired, you know, being in in first responders, they tend to retire a little bit early. Yeah. So none of us are hurting for any money. And these businesses, they run tight margins. And we don't, we're not looking for any of that. It's just, and some have tried giving us free food, some has just tried giving us discounts. I'm like, no, that's not, that's not what I want to do. We're we're here to have a good time. And if you can get some more business out of it, great. And, you know, so yeah, that that's kind of how we ended up doing what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

I love that. And and I hope that more owners understand and embrace what you guys are doing. And hey, send out an invite. Hey, let's I don't know where you guys are coming next month. Come come to my place. We'd love to have you.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, I've already Yeah, I've already starting to get a couple of those. And you know, people like, hey, come check us out. And what I'll do is I call it kind of the slice mob recon team. So myself and I'll grab another one of my buddies or two and we'll just go check it out. Um, because some places just can't handle the volume, and that's okay. You know, they're like your local neighborhood places that, you know, they have seating for three and it's mostly takeout. And um, but you know, if the pizza's good, we'll you know, we'll figure out a way to do it. But I, you know, I we we try to again go out, it's maybe scout it out, so it's it's a fun mission, right? We go out and and kind of s you know, eat that way. But it's but yeah, no, we've been getting people that are like, hey, and a lot of them start to complain about the other influencers who and I get it, people are looking to make a living, and everyone's gotta make a living. And there's a you know, there's a cost of doing this, but I'm just at a different point in my life, and I've spent my whole life giving back and volunteering. I just can't, you know, I'm gonna get a $20 pizza for free. Like it's just no. I'm gonna pay you and and the ones that try giving us discounts, I make it up in the tip. So, but yeah, it's just I I'm not not that kind of person. And not again, not to belittle anyone who is, because again, we're all trying to to make a living.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, everyone's got their thing, right? That's it, it is, but in terms of building a bond and embracing the whole community aspect of it, I think what you're doing is the right way to, you know, interact and engage with with the local business.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Uh yeah, right or right.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I mean, nothing wrong with what those guys do. I get it. We I have a restaurant. We sometimes you need them and you need that traffic or that influence that they can they can give you, right? Especially because eyeballs are everything. People want to see different perspectives, they want other folks' opinions. I just like to be more positive when it comes to things.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah. And and don't get me wrong, you know, like my Facebook account has been monetized, so I make a little bit off of that, but that surprised the heck out of me. Yeah. Every month I get a check from them. I'm like, all right, this is kind of cool. And um, it changes a lot because now I have to, you know, I can't use copyrighted moo music, so I have to create my own music to go along with my videos or use, you know, royalty-free music. But and you know, my YouTube channel's about halfway there to get monetized. But again, I'm not if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'm just having a good time with it.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

I think it's it's it's all a testament to the power of community and real influence. Has there been a favorite style of pizza? Like obviously I know where you are. I understand, you know, you're in the pizza capital of Connecticut. Yes. But but is there is there a uh a favorite style for you guys, for the slice mob in general or for you?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Well, you know, growing up Italian and predominantly Sicilian, I was always growing up on the thick bakery style pizzas. So I like the Sicilian, I like the grandmas, but there's just a lot of dough there, right? And as much as I love it, I can't eat a lot of it. So I, you know, we all kind of gravitated towards more the thin crust, New Haven style, Neapolitan style. So that's kind of where we ended up go we end up going. We've been to some places where they've had Detroit. Some places have very good Detroit-style pizza, some places don't have such good Detroit-style pizzas. But we really try to kind of stick within that thinner crust. Um, we haven't ventured down the road to the Greek-style pizzas, you know, the ones that are kind of baked in the pan, more tender dough, spicier sauce. But it's it definitely is that thinner crust because you can certainly eat a lot more of that and the toppings shine through on that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

What I want to go into your your barbecue judging experience because that was something that stood out as I was doing my research on you. Barbecue judge, what qualifies someone as a barbecue judge?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

So uh pretty much a pulse and being able to eat. And I'm kidding. You know, it it is one of those things where years ago, um, I joined the Kansas City Barbecue Society and they have their judging. So you have to go through a class, and you're more you're more or less just learning the rules of the contests. And they cover a little bit of food, but like, you know, you've got to understand flavor profiles and you know, the heat, the sweet, the umami, you know, the tang. You've got to understand all of that kind of stuff. You don't understand that, it's you're not gonna be a good judge. Right. But it really is more to understand the rules. And then, you know, you you have to, you know, they have contests, you have it signed, and the more you do them, you can become like a master judge. The problem in Connecticut, they're just not a lot of contests anymore. And, you know, I don't get paid for any of it. And I do have a a family still. My my son is 30, he's getting married in October, but my daughter's 15 and she's very active in sports. So it's hard to like, hey, I'm going away for the week and to judge a contest up in, you know, out of state. Um, it's not fair to anybody. Well, but it's um, yeah, and it's it's been a lot of fun. I've met met a lot of great people through that. And um, you know, I've been smoking barbecue for years, and uh, it's just you know, I've got a couple smokers in the backyard, I got a couple pizzas oven ovens back there, and you know, I just I love good barbecue.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

The hardest discipline for me to master is the pit. Like I understand, you know, pizza very well and dough, and I can I can make pizza. I cannot barbecue. What's this? Really? I can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

You know, it's it's patience, it's fire control, temp, you know, managing the fire temp, knowing what temperatures you want certain meats to be at, wrapping versus unwrapping, spraying versus unspraying. And you just, you know, you gotta understand what each one of these things, what they do to the end product. So what I always say is, okay, you know, kind of begin with the end in mind. So, okay, what do I want? Right. If I'm looking to get, you know, brisket that slice, but I want a nice dark bark, but I also want the burnt ends. Do I want the burnt ends more competition style where there's just like the bark on the sides, or do I want like restaurant-style burnt ends where there's bark on all sides? And um, you know, my wife always tells me, she's like, no, when you're doing burnt ends, you got to get bark on all sides because that's the best part. So I, you know, I say, okay, now I know I have what I need to do. So, you know, I cook the whole brisket and then I get it to a certain point. I cut the point off, let the flat rest, and then I cube it, re-season it, and I throw back on the smoker because the point can handle more heat. And uh, and then I get the crust of the bark on all sides of the burnt ends. And I call them little bites of heaven because you just pop these things, that's hard to stop. I love it. But yeah, it's just, and you know, a lot of us experimenting too, right? It's it's took me a lot. The first time I ever made a pulled pork, I didn't realize that the thermometer, rookie mistake, was not accurate on this on the smoker that I was given. My wife had given me one for a present many years ago, which she may have come to regret turning me into that. But and I'm like, it was finally two o'clock in the morning, and I'm like, I put the thing in the crock pot to finish it. And I'm like, oh my god, I'm handing in my barbecue card. I'm done. Now, this was before I was a judge, right? This was many, many years ago, and I'm like, oh my god, this is just horrible. I like I'm so disenchanted. But I'm like, I'm not giving up. Oh, I invest in better equipment because it really is temperature management. Like if you're if your thermometers are not accurate, then time is gonna be way off. Absolutely. So I cook by temp, but I also cook by touch, by feel, by look. You just use all your senses. And if something doesn't make sense, you gotta, okay, what's going on? Like it says it's at the right temp, but it doesn't feel right. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna let it go a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Do you ever compete in any of the competitions?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I have never competed. I would have loved to compete, but I've never had the opportunity to compete. It just I didn't want to compete on my own at first. I wanted to be part of a team. I just the problem is once I go down these rabbit holes, I go down. Deep. So I have to be very careful. Like if I had got into competition barbecue, then you know, uh so I just I'm like, all right, let me cook like cooking it in the background and in the you know, in the backyard for my family, my friends. I've done it for local firehouses when they've suffered a l of line of duty death and they were, you know, I brought bring food to them. Um and I just I keep doing it that way. It's just so if an opportunity presents itself, yeah, I'd like to compete, but I don't want I don't want to run the show because it's if I go down that rabbit hole, I may not be coming up.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I'm sure your family would appreciate you, uh the restraint there too, right? Yeah, absolutely. The personal restraint. So, you know, experience as a judge, you you really got to learn the ins the ins and outs of, you know, the technical aspects of of barbecue. Do you bring those skills over to the pizza side when you guys are visiting new places? Like, what's the first thing you look at when you when a pizza hits the table and you guys are you know, you guys are there to try it for the first time? What's the first thing that you think and look at?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Well, the first thing I when I first walk in, I look at the restaurant, I kind of get the vibe of the restaurant. Right. So I I that to me, like if you read any of my views, I always talk about the vibe. Sometimes they put it early on in the article, sometimes it's later on. But I always talk about the vibe of the restaurant. What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Because, you know, a lot of people write about, oh, this pizza's great, you should try it. Okay. Well, when I walk through the door, like, you know, when like you walk through the door, it you can smell the wood, like, okay, and there's a wood-fired oven here. You know, so you I it's kind of what vibe is it trying to get across? And then you look at it, and I like a little char. And, you know, coming from barbecue, char is crust. It's a smoky flavor, it's not burnt. And that is some of the biggest arguments that I see people having. I just don't even engage them anymore because it's just exhausting. You know, people coming from other parts of the country, like, oh, you want a New Haven style pizza, throw it in the oven at a thousand degrees for three hours, and you, you know, and I'm like, hey, not flat anymore. There's a difference. Yeah. And a char, so you know, I look for some char for some coloring. And one of the things that we judge on in barbecue is the parents, right? We're too we we look at appearance, we look at taste, we look at tenderness. And so I, you know, how does this pizza look? Does it make me want to dive in? Or does it make me like, yeah, those meatballs look kind of dry? And you maybe they're delicious, but they don't look, you know. So I I look at what is it that's in front of me? Do I want to do I want to dive in and just eat this thing? And so that's kind of the first thing I look at. And then, you know, I just I always look at the undercarriage, make sure it's not super burning. Nothing it ever has been. I don't, you know, a lot of people like, oh, it's got flop, it's got no flop. I, you know, like certain pizzas is just gonna flop and it just it is what it is. Yeah. And you know, like if you put four toppings on something, it's it's gonna Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, and and like, you know, some places put olive oil in there dough, and you know, you and and that makes it more tender, and that's good, you're gonna get more flop. Like a New York style pizza slice is is there's olive oil in that to make it more tender, because in New York a slice is you're folding it and you're eating it on the go. Um, you don't see a lot of that in traditional Connecticut pizzas, but you do. There are some places. And if there is, you're gonna probably get a little bit of a flop. Yeah. Um, but that's okay. It's you know, I a deal breaker for you? Not a deal breaker for me. As long as I get the you know, the corncell on it, the crust, with a little bit of with some char there, with some smokiness there, the crunch there, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Has there do you guys ever debate on, you know, pizza when you're sitting around like, oh man, this is the best one ever? Like last month a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

To an extent. It you know, the problem is it has gotten so big that I have a tough time now talking to everybody. Because it seems like every new get, you know, get together, there's two or three more people that I'd never met before, but they saw my posts on the Connecticut Pizza Forum. It's a forum I run on Facebook. We're I mean, we're not huge, but we're at about 4,000 people, excuse me. Um and people are walking through the door that I'd never met before. Sorry. No, you're fine. So I'm like, you know, I'm trying to talk to them. And it it's hard to talk to 20 people uh when you only have like an hour, hour and a half. But we do afterwards, we'll talk about, oh, this is really good. You know, we're not I see groups of guys that will go out and and they'll each rate their pizzas, they'll give it a numeric score, yeah, and then they'll and I'm like, I'm not I'm not into the scoring end of it. Like there there's a lot of other people that can swear they can do that. I'm like, I either like it or I don't. But yeah, no, we definitely have discussion, but it's not nothing has ever been like, oh my god, this was absolutely horrible. It's you know, because I'm also making sure we're going to good places.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

That's what the recon team is for.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

That's what recon is, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I got a reputation up all you also do a lot of, you know, besides the you know, the barbecue and the pizza, I've seen I've seen on your website and on your page, you cook a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

What's what's the hardest thing to cook with?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

You know, trying to scale something that's like like over the weekend, my son wanted to come over with you know, him and his fiancee and her mother, and he wanted to cook dinner for all everyone with me. So he we're we made fresh pasta from scratch. And um he's like, Can we stay? Yeah, yeah, that my island in my kitchen is ten and a half feet long, and that thing was like almost twice the size of my island. Obviously, I cut it into 12 foot lengths and then I made fettuccine out of it. But yeah, it was it was kind of cool. And he wanted like he didn't want a tomato sauce. So I'm like, how we do it like Cachopepepe, which is you know, one of the four Roman pastas, and I love Roman pastas. Um so I ended up having two pounds of fettuccine and I'm like, you know, this is something I cooking for two people, three people is very easy. When you're cooking for a lot of people, it's like, um, it was just it was hard to kind of incorporate everything. So that was those are the struggles that I face, right? When it's like when learning to scale up. Um but you know, technically I well, I I made uh perfiderols the other day, and you know, you gotta make a patachew, which is very I'm gone. So uh, you know, you know, the cream puff pastries, right? They're okay little cream puffs, they're perfiderols. And the dough is made a very special way, and you've got to cook it, dry it out, and then you incorporate eggs, and that's what you know, the eggs and and the steam give it the lift. Well, I didn't finish the the first part of it, and I won't get too technical, so it didn't dry out as much, but it it looked like it was fine, but I was doing other things, and then I went to incorporate my eggs and only took half the eggs, and I'm like, oh, this isn't gonna be good. And they didn't rise as much as they should have. So that was my I was like mortified. And I was bringing some to my in-laws, and I told my wife and my daughter, I'm like, I'm not bringing these, these are an embarrassment. And they're like, these things are delicious. Just bring them. No one's gonna know. You're the only one. But I feel like I gotta tell people I there were some technical errors here.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

It's not the perfect perfiderol, but you know, I think I think that matters more when it's something that is when you have to do it for business, right? And you have to sell it and it's gotta be consistent. But I think you get a lot more maybe you get a lot more forgiveness from the crowd or from the audience, then then you know, that's good. You're probably just being way too hard on yourself.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah and I always am, and that's how I get better. Push myself and you know, push myself and my mistake.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

You you you bake, you barbecue, you make pizzas. What what is it that is there anything that you just stay clear of?

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I haven't done a lot of seafood. You know, it's coming from an Italian family, people like, well, you don't you don't eat a lot of seafood, and I never did growing up. I just never really liked it. As I became an adult later in life, I've started eating it. My wife's family is from Ireland and they live on a, they have a house off the coast of Ireland, and it's a very, you know, fisherman's friendly community. So whenever we go there, there's a ton of seafood that they eat. And I'd always think, eh, I'm gonna hold off. But I I I've got to start getting into that. We had a project where I had to cook salmon for 50 people and people are like, oh my God, the salmon is so good. I'm like, oh, okay, good, because this is the first time I've ever done it. I didn't even try it while I was doing it. Yeah, yeah. So my daughter's like, why don't you make this for us at home? Like, all right, all right. So that's that's my next thing I want to get into. I'll start doing more seafood, but up until now I've kind of stood away from.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

I think seafood, you know, and your smoker may have may be a good combination.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah. No, everyone says there's certain fishes that you can smoke and it's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

And, you know, um, so just gotta play around with it. Yeah, I've got these like cedar planks that I guess you're supposed to use and you can smoke fish or something on it. I've never tried it. It's yeah, it's it's all too intimidating for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah, no, I well, you know what, you just gotta do it because the first time you do anything, it's intimidating. And then you're like, oh, okay, it's not that hard. You know.

unknown 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I think you know, folks in my family assume that I just love to I love to cook. I'm like, I like making pizza. Yeah, right. Right. Like I don't want I don't want to make anything else. Everything else is microwave for me. Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Best best pizza city in America. Best pizza city in America. I I'd have to say New Haven. And it's I might lose my Connecticut card and my uh my slice mob status if I didn't. But with that said, like I, you know, I have been to Chicago. I have been had pizza in Italy, pizza in Ireland, which was interesting. But people say, oh, you know, go to Chicago, it's Deep Dish, it's not that good. I'm like, well, first of all, if you're in Chicago, you're not eating Deep Dish every Friday night. It's it's kind of a novelty. But they, you know, it once in a while, it's just it's a good pizza to have. And, you know, I'll make some, we have some in the freezer. When we go out there, we'll enjoy it. I also like their, you know, their um their tavern style, that super thin, super sheeted, cured dough. That that's good too. Love a Detroit pizza. I love the the fried cheese along the edge, right? The Frico. To me, that's there's a couple of places in in Connecticut that do it really, really well. Yeah. But I think my heart and soul is really it and I'm a basic kind of guy. I like just a red sauce. Not even cheese, just grated cheese and red tomato sauce. Because when we and when you do it like that, you can't hide behind anything. Your your ingredients have to be to be really good. At the end of last year, my daughter plays volleyball. We were in Rhode Island for a tournament, and one of my wife's friends came to watch her play, and she brought some of the Rhode Island red strips, the pizza. And it's like the old Sicilian bakery style pizza served at room temperature, and I'm like, oh my God, this is so good. You know, it's a thick, reduced, you know, it's heavily cooked, reduced, but it's you know, instead of light and fresh, like the tomatoes are in on a tomato and a Connecticut pizza, because they don't typically cook their sauce. This is cooked and cooked, and it's just it's very rich and very flavorful. And uh so I came home and I'm like, I'm gonna figure this out. And I and we had a Christmas party, and I'm like, I made it for the Christmas party because it was just it was so good.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I like it. There's still a few places around Tampa, like old uh Cuban bakeries that still serve pizza that way too.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Which is pretty cool. You kind of mentioned it a little bit, but ingredients, which what matters more? Dough, sauce, or cheese or toppings.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Well, when you're cooking with you know, with just a few ingredients, you need the good stuff. Um if I'm doing a pizza and I have the time, I I try to do a three-day cold fermentation by using depending on the type of pizza, like if I'm doing a traditional New Haven pizza, I'll use pure bread flour. If I'm cooking in my uni or my gazi and I'm making Neapolitan, I'll use uh like a Caputo Double Zero. That I only ferment maybe 24, 36 hours. Uh you know, get it in the oven there and literally it cooks in 60 to 90 seconds. Yeah. And then if I'm I sometimes I just play around. Sometimes it's, you know, I do like uh we have a Super Bowl party every year at my buddy's house, and my cousin and I are in charge of the pizzas and I'll make the dough. And this time I did a 70-30 mix of bread flour and Caputo Double Zero. Uh and it, you know, came out nice, it came out nice and crispy. Um But I was getting I was getting a little worried because you know, we're cooking in his oven and we bring our pizza steels and we get everything going. And the first pizza goes in and comes in great, comes out great. And then the second and third pizzas go in, and I notice a lot of like air bubbles forming. And I'm like, what is going on here? This dough all fermented at the same time. Why are these bubbles happening? And I'm like, what did I do? I screwed something up and I'm like thinking, thinking, thinking. And then I realized my my friend has a six-year-old, and he was helping us make the pizza. You know, he was stretching it. And I was watching him, he was sealing the ends of the dough, and not instead of pushing the air out, he was sealing the ends. And I'm like, Okay, I know it's not me. All right, good. So I just, you know, you end up like he did that. I'd have to dock it with a fork, which I don't like to do, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Um gotta protect the final product.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah, but you know, sauce, I don't put a lot of stuff in my sauce. I don't like an overly spiced sauce. So to me, it is you gotta have high quality tomatoes. So I'll use like Stanislav products. So I'm making big ones because they just show the number 10 cans. But if not, I'll use like a cento or a sclefani or um uh Bianco Dinopoli, that type of stuff. Sometimes I'll crush them by hand, sometimes I buy them already crushed, but I always taste it first before I use it. And I'm like, okay, this is good, just a little bit of salt. And nine times out of ten, I'm just there's just a little bit of salt in the tomato sauce, and it just goes on like that. And maybe post-bake, I'll add a little bit of oregano if people want it. But and then, you know, mozzarella, I try to, when I'm cooking for big ones, get grande mozzarella. It's there's a couple of restaurant places around here that sell it. It's and it's a fun, you know, it's a half day. I go down with a cousin or buddy of mine, and you know, we have pizza, we go to the restaurant places and we pick up all the stuff, and then we buy some of the local like locally made sodas and make it halfway. Make fun with it. Yeah, absolutely. But I do believe in good ingredients. Like if you're if you're gonna put out a product, even if it's for friends or family, I believe you gotta have good ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

I agree. And it and if you're gonna sell it, it's even more important.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Oh so crap. Are there any toppings you refuse to eat?

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Not yet. And I know people are like that whole pineapple thing, and it's like, you know, from a culinary point of view, the sweetness of the pineapple, the saltiness of the ham, it kind of works, but I don't think I've ever really refused. I know some of my buddies, you know, have gone to Ireland and Scotland, they've sent me pictures of haggis on pizza, and uh I have not tried that yet. So I'm not it it's it is a it's a delicacy over in Ireland and and um and Scotland and made with things that you don't usually see around this country, like different body parts. And I I I I've got to look up the exact what's in it, but you know, in the United States, we're very particular over what parts of the animal we eat. In other parts of the world, they eat everything, nothing goes to waste. It's you know, their motto is have respect for the animal.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

If it died for you, don't let it consume the animal. Yeah, yeah. It looks interesting.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah, it's uh you know, they also have like blood pudding and stuff, and I, you know, it is what it is. It's uh it's yeah. Um, but I haven't tried that yet.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

All right. Well, opposite ends, if there were if there was one toppling that you had to choose and have it on pizza forever, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

I'm a simple guy. I like tomato sauce and grated pecorino Romano. Like to me, that is super simple. It's simple, but it's gotta be done right. You know, I mean, you know, I could say the cup and char pepperoni, I like the little crispiness. I like the little, you know, the shots of oil that develop in the bottom of it. You know, I've had some excellent like buffalo chicken pizza with homemade cutlets on it. There's a pizza place not too far from me. He's got an off-menu item, which is I I walk in and I'm like, you know what I want? He's like, okay. And it's, you know, it's uh it's a vodka sauce with you know high quality mozzarella. He makes his own cutlets, um, and then uh, you know, freshly whipped rovata. And it was just it's like it's delicious, it's amazing. But if I had to pick one, I think I would just go with the red sauce and the grated pectorina room. Simple and elegant. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah. If you could take the slice mob anywhere in the country for a pizza trip, where would you go?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. I gotta tell you, I had some phenomenal pizza, and I was shocked about this. But Bonchi in Rome. And Gabriella Bonci, he's got a place in Chicago now, which I haven't been to yet. And I was reluctant to try it because, you know, he was on Netflix and he was part of the uh the chef's table. They did a thing on pizza, and his story, like all Netflix stories, they they kind of move you down this emotional line, like you know, you go up, you go down, you're like, oh my god, is it then it gets better? But I had taken a family trip to Italy, and we were staying in Rome, because that's where my stepfather, who he passed away several years ago, but that's where he was from. So we wanted I wanted my mother to see where he was from. So we I took her there and I'm like, we gotta try it out, we're here. And it was amazing pizza. Now there he had tripe on pizza, and I wouldn't I didn't try that at the time. But his to me it was like that would be a cool trip. Because I think the pizza, it's it's back then I it didn't I was afraid it was gonna be overhyped and it was not it lived up to the reputation. It was it was excellent.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Take it take the slice mob to Rome. Yeah. I love it. I maybe a slice mob recon. I don't know. We'll see. I think that you well, recon always has to go first. Absolutely. Absolutely. So that is uh that's all that's in the universe now. We're gonna see if we can make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

All right. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Great. This is this has been pretty cool. Thank you so much for for coming on and joining us. As a you know, in your in your nine to five world as a financial planner, I'm sure that you you you always have to spend just like a business owner, you have to take well, in your business owner, you have to take the time to plan things correctly, you know, do your research, put the work in. There's always gonna be these struggle periods and you know, on this show and in and in my business we're we always talk about the importance of developing leaders and the importance of having a positive outlook and a great mindset and being great communicators. Is there anything that you could share or even you know give some advice to someone who listens to this show and they're thinking about possibly opening in their own pizzeria or they've been making pizzas in the backyard and someone told them they should sell it sell them and they're gonna explore it. So as a business owner and as a you know a pizza lover and and food lover, what advice would you give to someone who's who's thinking about making that jump?

SPEAKER_01 34:53

That's interesting because I have been asked many times when am I gonna open up a place? And to me, it's like I'm doing it because I enjoy it. And now if it becomes work, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll enjoy it. I don't know. I so you know, the financial advisor comes out in me, it's like, you know, measure four times and cut once. Um, but if you're gonna do it, have a business plan, hire a consultant maybe to help you with that business plan and to work out some of the details. Because I'm a firm believer in having outside objectivity, because you know, in your mind, you think you know everything and you think you've overcovered everything and you haven't overlooked anything. But having an outside consultant to come in and talk to you about little things, little tweaks that might help. Again, having a plan, a financial planner, we're big on planning, right? So people tell me they want to retire. I'm like, well, you got to come to me when you're starting work and not when you're about to end work because it's very different. So have a plan, follow through on that plan, be flexible with that plan, have enough money set aside because there are going to be drawbacks, there are going to be rainy days, there are going to be things that you just never anticipated that are going to pop up. And like I tell people in a financial plan, one of the most boring parts of a financial plan is having a cash reserve. But that cash reserve bails you out. You know, if you're driving down the road and your and your transmission falls out, you need $5,000 to get that fixed. If you have to go to credit card debt, you know, now you're paying that $5,000 back over 10 years and it's costing you $15,000 worth of interest. So have the cash reserve so you don't go into further debt. And just, you know, again, plan it out and and be thick skinned because there are people out there that are they just have mean genes. And I don't know any other way to put it. It's people like to fight for the sake of fighting. And I know that my YouTube channel is getting there because I'm starting to get the comments already about stuff like that. I'm like, okay, so I know that I'm I'm hitting people at all walks of life because it's, you know, and yeah. And even on like my uh my pizza place on on Facebook, the Connecticut Pizza Forum, uh, I've had to shut people down because it's like, listen, if I post a picture of something that I like, if you don't like it, just scroll on by. Um I just wrote a review of a small place in in Middletown. It was a newer place and it was still a little bit different, but it was good. And people, and this one person in particular is just like being very nasty. And I'm like, there's no place for negativity here. I let the first one go, and then they came back and I'm like, you're done. I just banned them because I just I can't. People have the right to their own opinion, but you don't have to bring anybody else down. So it's a long way to say, yes, have thick skinned and be prepared to make mistakes because we all do and just learn from them. Don't get discouraged. Absolutely. That's great advice. I mean, it's I've been doing financial planning for 30 years. The first five years were like, I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to hang up my hat, you know. It was a lot of failure. And I had to tell myself, you know, 10 out of the 10 people I talked to, nine are gonna say no. So I had that mindset that every time somebody said no, I'm just one step closer to a taking on a client. Um a little bit different when you're offering food, but it's that same mindset. You just gotta grind it out. You gotta grind it out. You never know when you're gonna hit that tipping point. And then once the tipping point comes, you're, you know, you're good. But it's a struggle, it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Yeah, but you just gotta just show up every day willing to take on whatever comes with it.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

You also have a strong social media presence, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Tell us how to find you and where's the best place to connect with with you and read the reviews and follow the the journeys of the slice mob.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah, so I'm kind of all over the place right now. So um I have a website, DodaddyCooks.com, and that's kind of like the central everything is there. My I have recipes, I have cooking techniques, I have all my restaurant reviews, I have slice mob meetups, everything is there. But if you're on social, if you're on YouTube, it's DoeDaddy Cooks as well. So it's pretty much anything with Doe Daddy Cooks. You'll find me on Instagram, I have a Facebook or Frank Zacco, Z O C C O. You'll find me on Facebook that way, Instagram. Um, but yeah, that's I think that that's pretty much it. But the YouTube is is DodaddyCooks.com. I'm sorry, DodaddyDaddy Cook.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Dodaddycooks on YouTube, DodaddyCooks.com. We'll drop the links in in the show description. This was uh this was again a lot of fun. Thank you so much for for joining me and and working through the the technical stuff with me. You know, Monday, Monday mornings aren't always uh smooth roads, but we make No, no, they're not.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

But you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah, we are much stronger for this.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Thank you all.