New Webisode, Brava Pizzeria della Strada, Part One

A few years ago, while exploring the Denver pizza scene (see our recent webisode series on Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza), our friends at The Fire Within told us about a pizzaiolo who was using one of their mobile pizza units (made with a Forno Bravo oven, of course), who was parked right on the famous 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver, just at the base of the iconic clock tower on Arapahoe Ave.  We had to check it out and that’s how we met Dave Bravdica: chef, pizzaiolo, caterer, entrepreneur, and founder of Brava Pizzeria della Strada. We spent about three hours filming with Dave, sampling his fabulous pizzas and also his signature oven roasted porchetta sandwich (more about that in a future webisode), and learning about his own journey, his quest to feed lots and lots of people with the foods he learned to make in Italy. The rest, as they say, is history, as he now makes up to 100 pizzas and sandwiches every day, just during the lunch rush, out of his little mobile oven.  That’s a pretty good business model, I think, especially if he’s having as much fun as it appeared to us.

I noticed, when I recently visited David’s website for an update (www.bravapizza.com) that he now has another pizzaiolo on the team, Chef Thomas Garnick, operating a second location, as well as helping with their full fledged catering business. Whenever folks ask me if you can make a living operating a pizza truck, I just tell them about Brava Pizzeria, and tell them to call Dave. You’ll see what I mean over the next few weeks as we share six new webisodes from our pizza adventure on the stradas of Denver.