I’ve written before about my love of Basic Kneads‘ pizzas. Fabulous ingredients on top of a perfectly wood-fire crisped crust make for a mighty fine pie. They built their own wood-fired oven last year and mounted it on a trailer and that was cool enough. But this time, they outdid themselves! If you think this is as cool as I do, you should plan on having a fine beer and a finer pizza for dinner tonight – they’ll be out at Great Divide!
DIY Pizza Truck
The Basic Kneads team, brothers Eric, Reid, and Joel Bakken are apparently pretty damned handy. Sticking with the do-it-yourself approach, they started with an old FedEx step van and converted the thing themselves. That’s right – they built a wood-fired oven inside a vehicle on their own. How freaking cool is that?!
And being the hardcore DIYers that they are, these guys captured the oven build on video, time lapse style. check it out.
[youtube 5Mf5_96nKfU]
I stopped by the Great Divide Tap Room a few weeks back – where Basic Kneads serves up their awesome pies pretty much every Wednesday and most Fridays – to check out this sweet machine on its first night out. I got there early and found Reid Bakken prepping the new mobile kitchen and heating up the oven. He let me hop in to snap a few pix, and told me a little about the truck. Of course, considering they intentionally burn an incredibly hot fire inside the truck, I had to ask if it was street legal. Reid assured me he as mostly sure it was. When Eric showed up a little later, he was beaming with pride over their new wheels. I asked him about their artistic direction – were they planning on wrapping it? Crazy elaborate paint job? Not at all – staying with their DIY theme, these guys are going to polish the thing to a high metallic sheen (much like the oven pictured to the right) and slap their pretty logo right on top of the shiny metal, sort of like an American Airlines jet as Eric pointed out.
When I finally got around to ordering my pizza (beer, cool new truck that has fire inside – lots of distractions!), it was, as expected, fanfreakingtastic. These guys throw a fine pizza, and now they’ve got some hot wheels to go with the hot pies! Congratulations, guys!
You can find this fine new machine and some of the best pizzas in town most Wednesdays (and have I mentioned today IS Wednesday) at the Great Divide Tap Room starting at 6pm. If you haven’t done yourself the favor of trying Basic Kneads, do it tonight! Not to mention: beer!