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!
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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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