Pizza Passion: How a Food Cart Built Pupatella's VPN-Certified Empire
Enzo Algarme started Pupatella as a pizza cart in Ballston in 2007, and this DC food podcast episode is the whole story of what came next. Nineteen years and twelve restaurants later the recipe has not changed by a gram, and the reason why is the part nobody writes about.
Nycci Nellis takes Industry Night out to Pupatella in the Mosaic District to sit with founder Enzo Algarme and managing partner Michael Berger, about three feet from a wood fired oven built with bricks from Mount Vesuvius. Enzo came from Naples to play soccer, pivoted to medical school, and ended up building a pizza cart because no landlord in the Washington DC restaurant market would rent to a man with no money and no experience. He named the place after his grandmother. Michael spent a decade building Elevation Burger and became obsessive about supply chain, and an attorney they both used sent them to breakfast. What came out of those breakfasts is a case study in growing a food business without sanding down the thing people loved about it. They get into VPN certification and what the inspector actually checks, buffalo mozzarella flown weekly from Naples, why they refused to chase one market in site selection, the Dupont Circle location they signed two months before COVID, delivery apps, and what it really costs to document a recipe that lived in one man's hands. If you follow the DC food and wine show circuit or you work anywhere in the hospitality industry, this one is worth your time. Then Nycci goes into the kitchen for a pizza masterclass.
