Looking for a fabulous easter brunch option this Sunday? Let us take care of it for you two ways! We'll be open from Noon-8pm for all your pizza needs, or you can pre-order one of our savory egg crostata! Here's the details:
Par-baked, they come in a single serving for $12 or family size which serves 6-8 people for $46. Pick-up will be Saturday morning from 11-12 or by appointment. Meat option; lamb chorizo, feta, red onion, peppadew and potatoes. Vegetarian option; mushroom, caramelized onion, peppadew, potato, white cheddar and a wild ramp pesto. We also have a special seasonal salad option build for carry-out at $6/person. Pre-orders can be by email at orders@goremadepizza.com or over the phone 614.725.2115 during business hours through thursday night at 8pm. We will be calling to confirm all orders friday morning between 11-12 and accepting payment over the phone. Things to include in the order: Name and Phone Number, Amount and Size of Crostata, Meat or Veggie, and if you want salad, how many people are you serving. Happy Easter can still be a thing in spite of all that's going on these days. And we can help! Wednesday, September 25th will be the 3rd anniversary celebration of the opening of our Pizza Doors, and every year we throw a Christmas party to celebrate, complete with free pizza to anyone who enters our doors. The details and "why christmas" below.
Who: GoreMade Pizza in partnership with Highland Youth Garden. Click to learn more about why they are awesome. What: Christmas on Wednesday! . A free pizza and fund raising event for Highland Youth Garden in the theme of Christmas. When: Wednesday, September 25th, 2019 from 5-9pm Where: 936 N 4th Street Cols, OH 43201 Why: For our 3rd Anniversary celebration! And why Christmas on Wednesday, you ask? Here's our best descriptor (from a previous blog post). ******************************************* Back when I was just a broke 20something, the eventual super sale of left-over post-easter hams began a tradition. We'd buy a cheap spiral sliced ham and throw it in the freezer. Then, some unsuspecting day in june or july when I had no money and payday wasn't for another week, I'd get the ham out on a monday and invite friends over for "Christmas on Wednesday". I provided the ham, and everyone else brought a side dish. We feasted like kings and forgot how broke we were for one night. Fast forward to our one year anniversary. We were the new kid on the block and wanted to throw an awesome party, only our anniversary was on a wednesday. How do you get a bunch of people to come out and celebrate on a wednesday when most people didn't even know who you were? The answer was simple... FREE PIZZA! And us giving away pizza quickly became a day of giving. We decided to do a fund raiser for a local farm doing community good. Also, Ramona Moon decided to donate our fabulous patio art car that very same week! And with all this giving, it started to feel like christmas. The only logical title for our celebration was CHRISTMAS ON WEDNESDAY! And so a new tradition was born! Read more about that event on a previous blog post. ******************************************* So here we are, coming up on our third anniversary, and the third time we've done this event. I'd like to share a few ways that we've evolved this celebration, and the evolution of some of my view of christmas as well. I'll be the first to admit that I have been in the camp of "Christmas is too commercial" and "I hate obligatory gift giving" ever since I found myself as an adult looking objectively at the ritual. It's always been difficult for me to get into the spirit of christmas with these things clouding my vision. There was a reluctance to decorate, give and just generally enjoy all that comes with the holiday. But one thing about this wacky free-pizza-christmas-in-september-anniversary event is that there are no christmas sales tempting you into things you can't afford. There is no christmas music playing at every turn. There's not even a hint of "christmas in july" out there. There is absolutely no societal weight around this day. It's arbitrary nature makes it completely free of everything except the spirit! Where there once was a scrooge of a pizza guy, there has become a joyful-gift-giving, whistle-while-you-decorate, nog-making chirstmas-spirit-embodying joy of a pizza guy! We've also started reaching out to our local farm community to get topping donations. This year, we've got produce donations coming from Front Axle Farm, Three Creeks Produce Farm and Freshtown farm, as well as donations from the Highland Youth Garden. Along with that, Butcher & Grocer and Ezzo Sausage Company have generously donated some fabulous meats as well. The local food system has really come together this year, and I love how we're using the system to support itself here. Local food, into local pizza. Free pizza into donations. Donations supporting the local food community through education and nourishing and enriching the community where it is needed most! We're giving away free pizza from 5-9pm this year. Some folks from Highland Youth Garden will be there to talk all about their organization, and we'll be collecting cash donations. Our servers have also agreed to donate all tips from the evening for the cause, so if you don't have cash, this is a great way to go. How sweet they are! The youth garden is a wonderful example of what we as a business hold most dear. The joyful creation and support of an inclusive local food network where it is needed most! From their website; The Highland Youth Garden is a .4 acre urban agriculture project giving children the opportunity to learn and grow through gardening. We offer a diverse, hands-on learning environment for children, giving them the space and guidance to grow their own food. We serve approximately 375 students from Highland Elementary Schools and The Educational Academy for Boy and Girls during the school year as well as youth from the neighborhood and as many as 200 young people each week during the summer. This organization is something worth supporting, y'all! Along with free pizza, we will be selling beer, wine and some christmas themed cocktails. Andicus has volunteered to play some christmas (and non-christmas) themed music out on the pizza patio. We've even invited Santa himself to come, although we're not quite sure if he's going to be able to attend (santa's a busy guy, ya know). Come celebrate this absolutely wonderful tradition with us. A Christmas party like no other, months before it gets old! Merry Christmas... on Wednesday! Christmas is in 5 days, folks! xoxo, NickG Thursday, September 27th will be the 2nd anniversary of the opening of our Pizza Doors, and we're throwing a Christmas party (again!) to celebrate, complete with free pizza to anyone who enters our doors. The details are as follows;
Who: GoreMade Pizza in partnership with Franklinton Farms. Learn more about why they are awesome here What: Christmas on Wednesday... on Thursday. A free pizza and fund raising event for Franklinton Farm in the theme of Christmas. When: Thursday, September 27th, 2018 from 5-9pm Where: 936 N 4th Street Cols, OH 43201 Why: For our 2nd anniversary celebration! And why Christmas on Wednesday... on Thursday, you ask? Here's where the story gets a little complicated. Here's our best descriptor. Back when I was just a broke 20something, the eventual super sale of left-over post-easter hams began a tradition. We'd buy a cheap spiral sliced ham and throw it in the freezer. Then, some unsuspecting day in june or july when I had no money and payday wasn't for another week, I'd get the ham out on a monday and invite friends over for "Christmas on Wednesday". I provided the ham, and everyone else brought a side dish. We feasted like kings and forgot how broke we were for one night. Fast forward to last year, our one year anniversary. We were the new kid on the block and wanted to throw an awesome party, only our anniversary was on a wednesday. How do you get a bunch of people to come out and celebrate on a wednesday when most people didn't even know who you were? The answer was simple... FREE PIZZA! And us giving away pizza quickly became a day of giving. We decided to do a fund raiser for a local farm doing community good. Also, Ramona Moon decided to donate our fabulous patio art car that very same week! And with all this giving, it started to feel like christmas. The only logical title for our celebration was CHRISTMAS ON WEDNESDAY! And so a new tradition was born! Read more about that event on a previous blog post. Now here we are, almost one year later, doing it all over again. The conundrum is that it's now on Thursday. Christmas on Thursday just didn't seem right, so we stuck with Christmas on Wednesday, only on Thursday this year. We're giving away free pizza from 5-9pm. Someone from franklinton farms will be there to collect cash and credit card donations. They are a wonderful example of what we as a business hold most dear. The joyful creation and support of an inclusive local food network where it is needed most! From their website; "We are a nonprofit urban farm in Columbus, Ohio that utilizes sustainable agriculture to address our community’s most pressing challenges. We are building a just local food system that improves food security and provides economic opportunity. We are building resilient community that is good for the planet and supports healthy futures for our neighbors. This organization is something worth supporting, y'all! Along with free pizza, we will be selling beer, wine and christmas themed cocktails and should have some other fun out back on the patio, weather permitting. Come celebrate this new and absolutely bizarre tradition with us. A Christmas party like no other, months before it gets old! Merry Christmas... on Wednesday... only on Thursday this time! Christmas is one week away, folks! Love, NickG GoreMade Pizza is making 2018 the year of #YourPizzaDreams. And with that, we're asking you one question... what are your pizza dreams?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN "PIZZA DREAMS?" When we ask people to tell us their pizza dreams, we typically get three different types of responses. First is those who assume it to be a question about a certain combination of toppings. "My pizza dream is a pizza with eggs, bacon, olive oil, fresh mozzarella and fresh cracked pepper". This is the most common category of response. It's literally what we call the create-your-own pizza on our menu. Next would be the sleeping dreams involving pizza. One woman had an anxiety dream about ordering a pizza delivered for a friend's birthday and it never showing up. The third category is a little harder to nail down, but it revolves mostly around what people want to do with/while/for pizza. This is pretty much the wild card and what seems to have the most unexpected responses. Our hope is to allow people to consider their pizza dreams on their own terms, without limitation. It could be ANYTHING, and that is both amazing and intimidating. Whatever the case, we want to know as many of them as we can. So we've decided to start the conversation. WHY? First and foremost, we're curious. More than that, we're interested, excited and entertained by other people's pizza dreams. I know what I think about pizza dreams, but what do YOU think when you're asked to define this same idea? And part of this project is to maybe make some of those dreams a reality. Some will be easy. Hell, we may already be making some of them come true and you just don't know it! Some will be hard, and if we're intrigued and inspired, maybe we'll put in some work to make them a reality? And some will surely be impossible. But no matter the case, we wanna know as many as we can! The responses we have received since the beginning of the year have already blown my mind, and we'll be sharing some of them as this project moves forward. But the truth is that making people's pizza dreams come true has been the game for us this entire time. It's why we opened our pizza doors in the first place. It's only recently that we've begun to look at it from a different angle. To take a more grand approach to the idea. We want to know EVERYONE'S pizza dreams, without limits or boundaries. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO? Quite simply, we're asking you to answer the question however it most makes sense to you. The easiest way I guess, would be to comment on this blog since you're already here. Other than that, there are several ways we're suggesting sharing. Some mediums of communication that come to mind would be; postcards/letters, comments, social media/blog/internet posts using short stories, videos, photos, collage or any other form of communication you can think of. But like this whole project, it is completely up to you. However you communicate, our only real hope is that you do. This project is nothing without your responses. Your pizza dreams. You can send us things in the mail to 936 N 4th st, Columbus OH 43201. WE LOVE MAIL! If we get any responses, we'll start a dream wall in the pizza shop and put em on display! We also have a pizza dream journal that we've got on the bar if you come in. Folks have already been writing in it for over a month, which has been amazing! Beyond that, it's up to you! Who knows where this project will go or what will come of it all, but it's time to find out. One question remains... What are #yourpizzadreams? NickG, out With christmas nearly upon us this throw back thursday, I am reminded very fondly our one year anniversary which happened a few short months ago. Oddly, our christmas tree has been up for over three months now! While christmas is always creeping into the commercial world earlier and earlier, even the giants don't dare start celebrating christmas as early as september. We here at GoreMade Pizza, in all our nonsensical glory, threw what we imagine to be the biggest christmas party that september had ever seen! Wednesday, September 27th marked one year since we opened our doors here. The fact that it was on a wednesday made it an interesting challenge. How do we throw an awesome party and have people come out to help celebrate... on a WEDNESDAY? In the end, we decided on FREE PIZZA! With that, it quickly became "Christmas on Wednesday!", and using it as an opportunity to raise money for a worthy cause. The whole shop was decorated in christmas decor, including several christmas trees, christmas lights, ornaments, banners, stockings and the likes. We even had live christmas music and a selection of christmas cocktails, including an amazing egg nog cocktail, "Kenny Noggins"! All in all, it was an amazing event! Our first guests of the day came completely decked out in christmas garb! Once that happened, we knew the day was gonna be awesome! Why christmas on Wednesday? Many moons ago, when I was an irresponsible twenty-something, it was always a struggle to hold on to money. I was always late with the rent and never had anything left before payday. One thing we always did was to buy things on sale after holidays, and one of my favorites was purchasing a spiral ham after Easter. They would be dirt cheap, and I'd throw one in the freezer and save it until we had no food or money. Then one random monday in summer, broke and hungry, we'd get the ham out of the freezer on a monday and email all our friends and invite them to christmas on wednesday. We provided the christmas ham, and everyone else would bring a side dish. We'd eat like kings and celebrate christmas without any commercialism. Just friends and food. When we realized that our anniversary was on wednesday, Christmas on Wednesday was the only reasonable response. So christmas it was. And with christmas, there was the idea of giving. So we decided to give away pizza, and then suggest our customers give as well. When we came upon Urban Farms of Central Ohio, it was clear that we needed to help support their cause. Their ability to help underprivileged communities by supplying fresh food through "pay-what-you-can" farm stands, and their commitment to using abandoned properties for the production of food in said neighborhoods is just brilliant. Education, fresh food, volunteerism, and supporting a better understanding of seasonality and where your food comes from. This is everything we believe in! By the numbers, here's how Christmas on wednesday worked out. Pizzas made: 186 Money raised: $789.50 (to be donated on the big give Oct 10th for an even further matching donation) along with 3 canned goods donated by a couple slightly confused customers. To be fair, Christmas on Wednesday (in September, no less) is kind of confusing. So, in lue of buying pizza, we encouraged donating to Urban Farms of Central Ohio. That night, we raised $789.50 in cash and text donations! You folks Rock! Along with us giving away pizza, and customers donating to Urban Farms of Central Ohio, Someone also decided to give GoreMade Pizza an amazing gift! Our good friend Ramona Moon delivered the amazing gift of Art Car to our Pizza Patio! The Turkey Toyota, as of monday, September 25th, is now a permanent addition to our whimsical back patio. And with it, a whole new way to enjoy the space. The turkey toyota is 1967 Toyota Corona. She has been the proud owner since 1975. The Turkey Toyota has been in books, movies, parades and all forms of art car celebration in the last 42 years, and now we have the pleasure of being a part of the next chapter! It is a tremendous honor to be the recipient, and we will display it with pride and whimsey for as long as we can! We also had an amazing amount of our pizza toppings donated to us. Fox Hollow Farm, Blues Creek Meats, Ezzo Sausage Company, Green Edge Garden, Swainway Urban Farm, GoreMade Garden and Sofo Foods all chipped in, making this event possible! We also had a guest pizza maker. 7 Time olympic pizza champion, member of the U.S. Pizza Team and local legend Ryan LaRose of Leone's Pizza joined us for the entire evening, helping us celebrate our first year and feed our amazing customers. A true pizza people, Ryan was an amazing help, picking up our subtlepizza making differences with grace and ease. He was constantly reminding me to enjoy the event and not work myself away from all the joy we were creating. We couldn't have done it without him! Thanks, buddy! So, after one year in business, we're still scratching the surface of what it is to be a world-class pizza place. We've learned so much, and still have so much more to learn, as is the entirety of life, I suppose. But it is an honor to have made it this far, and to have the support of an amazing community of farms, food providers, friends, family and customers. We're not planning on going anywhere, so here's to a year, and a hundred more! Thank you, friends!
A boarded up old building has now sprouted windows and a beautiful awning. The space has shifted into a mode of construction. Things are happening! There's still lots to be done, but we are slowly making some headway on the grand process that is turning an old TV repair shop into a bustling little wood fired pizza shop. The pace is definitely a bit slower than my excited self imagined it a year ago, but this has allowed me to really sink into some details that will really add a lot of character to our humble pizza operation. Soon, things will snowball into a whirlwind, and I'm sure I'll be missing all this free time and wishing I had some more! First off, I should mention the score! My father-in-law was somewhat of a Renaissance man, and in so, a collector of amazing things was a byproduct of his life. He encouraged me to poke through his "junk" for anything to throw into the pizza project. American pickers would have shit their pants! Mind boggling amounts of interesting things in a disheveled mess of awesome! We ended up digging around and finding an enormous amount of beautiful wood, stacked to air drying for over 20 years on the second floor of his "shop". There was pretty much an entire walnut tree just hanging out in the corner, along with a ton of other types of wood. I don't know board feet, but it is an amazing amount of awesome wood! He told me to take as much as I wanted. So now we have wood milled by my father in law, for the bar, benches, shelves and decorations. I'm also teaching myself how to make things. I've started with cheese/charcuterie boards out of some beautifully patterned live edge black walnut. This is my first attempt. It's a bread cutting board I made for my wife, built to fit our homemade pan de mie bread that our family so much enjoys! I also just took a class on whole hog butchery through The Commissary last week. If you haven't checked the place out, I suggest you do! The class taught us how to break down a half hog, and we were sent home with all the spoils of the class, including a bone saw, boning knife and a whole lotta pork! My oldest son was pretty excited to touch a pig's brain, let me tell you! I didn't get many pictures, but here's what we started off the class with (a warning for the squeamish, though it may just be too late by this point in the paragraph to avert the eyes). February 5th, 2015, we connected with a random craigslister about a vacant space at 936 north 4th street. That person turned out to be a long time friend. After around 388 days, we still have yet to open our doors, but the same sense of serendipity has been with us throughout the entire project, Illuminating the way in the darkness. My gut has proven quite a trusted friend, and we've met so many wonderful people along the way. We've still got a long way to go, but I am learning to see the joy in it all. I see this lengthy build-out as a gift. A gift I wanna rip open and cook pizza with! Alas, with all good things comes patience, and I will spend my days making this project ever stronger.
Thanks for sticking with us through it all! It will be my pleasure to serve every one of you amazing pizza people in this amazing space. More as the story unfolds! xoxo, NickG It may seem obvious, but the key piece of equipment, the engine of any wood fired pizza shop is the oven. This baby right here, the Mario Acunto Classico 5, is our engine. And it just arrived yesterday.
Well, after years of learning and growing, it's finally time to take GoreMade Pizza to the next level by opening our very first brick and mortar restaurant. If you recall from our first blog post back in 2011, this has been in the works for a long time! We've secured the most awesome of spaces, and I can't believe our luck!
In the long expanse of our culture's history with food, it is only very recently in that timeline that we have had the modern convenience of refrigeration. My grandmother tells stories of purchasing blocks of ice from the local Ice House in town to keep the milk cool for days at a time. Meat was usually only eaten fresh within a few days of slaughter. It was out of necessity that we found ways to make our food last more than the few days before going rancid. Out of this came cured meats! Modern day meat curing has become more of a flavor enhancer than a way of keeping food for extended periods of time, though that is indeed an added bonus. I first found interest in the art of charcuterie after realizing that cured meats fell well outside of all the food rules I knew. The fact that I can hang a pork belly in my basement for 3 months and then eat it was something I had to better understand. So, around December of 2014, I began to amass the knowledge, equipment and ingredients necessary for some very basic charcuterie. The beginning of this year's pizza season started off with an interesting event for GoreMade Pizza. One of my ingredient providers needed the use of my wood fired oven for a product demonstration at their annual food show. They had an italian pizza chef (who didn't speak a lick of english) flown in to demonstrate a new kind of flour entering the market. I'm not in the business of renting my oven, so I was hesitant at first. In the end, they hired me and the oven and all was well.
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AuthorNick Gore was a corporate peon by day who just made the leap to full time pizza geek. Follow his path to world class Pizzaiolo right here on the GoreMade Pizza blog. Archives
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