What started as a passion project for Chef Edwin Garcia in Maryland landed him a coveted spot inside a Montgomery County food hall, and he's just getting started.
El Jefe Wood Fired Pizza has a new home at the Solaire Social food hall in downtown Silver Spring after becoming a renowned mobile kitchen featured at busy farmers markets, wineries, breweries, and other events throughout the region.
Garcia said that during the pandemic he found himself out of a job and didn't know what to do. So a chef at his culinary school introduced him to Josh Anson, the owner of Cipolla Rossa, where he developed his love for making pizza and learned the ins and outs of running a mobile kitchen.
"During the time I worked for them, I learned so many things about pizza, and I just fell in love with making pizza," he added.
"A couple years ago, I thought to myself, 'I have 17 years of experience in the kitchen and I really love this job,' and wanted to give it a shot."
Garcia certainly shot his shot, and now has a permanent spot at the food hall, though his traveling kitchen is still making the rounds at certain events in the area.
"It is a little different," the chef said before pausing. "It's way different. When we're outside, and we have 200 people, or 100 people .. we have a specific rush there," he continued.
"In the store at Solaire, it's different, you don't know what to expect. Sometimes (it's slow) .. then there's the lunch rush and we're busy ... It's just like a restaurant."
El Jefe Wood Fired Pizza
Edwin Garcia
He said he prefers to stay inside, not battling the weather, though misses the interactions with his customers at events and other businesses with the mobile kitchen.
"It has been steady, and we've been having customers coming from the farmers market and asking if we have a location, and now we can say 'yes, we have a location.'"
Using his culinary experience, Garcia says he's been able to combine some of his favored Mexican flavors into his pizzas, including some ingredients he was able to trade for at the market in exchange for a slice.
Veggie pizza with extra 🌽
Posted by El Jefe Wood Fired Pizza on Sunday, June 2, 2024
"I wanted to infuse a little bit of Mexican touch to it," he said. "So I introduced few pizzas to my menu such as street corn, Birria pizza, chorizo pizza.
"Because we are doing farmers markets, our other vendors there would like to trade something for pizza, and we thought, 'why not street corn? Now is the season for corn, and there's lots of corn in the market and they'd give it to me and I'd give them pizza."
Garcia got his start in the kitchen when he was a teenager, and realized it was his passion at around 16. He said that his father was a construction guy, and wanted to push him toward that direction, but the chef knew how he wanted to spend his days.
After attending culinary school, he took jobs until discovering his affinity for working at mobile kitchens and opening up its first brick-and-mortar location on July 9 .
"Serving at breweries, farmers markets and events, we meet a lot of interesting people, we get new ideas, we hear so many different stories," Garcia continued.
"That's what I love about this job. What's cool about working at farmers markets is to get fresh new Ingredients and make pizza right away. Also we do trade like old times."
Garcia said that what makes El Jefe Wood Fired Pizza special "is that it's made from scratch and our team makes each and every pizza special, and he has no plans of slowing down.
"The plan was to build what I have now ... Then the plan was to go out and sell our products," he said. "I really like to still do the farmers markets, but we're going to stay, meet people, and share everything with the community."
Want breaking news in the DMV as it happens, or want to contribute? Join the DMV All Incidents Facebook group .
Most Popular
Comments / 0