407: Los Angeles Pizza King with Quarter Sheet's Aaron Lindell

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0:32After the New York Times 50, you know, restaurants list for that was in 2023, that changed things pretty much overnight. But it was building, you know, the line. That's when the line happened. That's when the line that was like, oh, quarter sheets has a line all the time. Stuff happened.

0:52this is taste i'm your host matt rodbard

0:59aaron lindell is the chef and co-owner of quarter sheets the wildly popular los angeles restaurant he runs with his wife hannah ziskin now listen you've probably read about quarter sheets you may have heard about hannah's iconic princess cake you may have heard about the the long line in the space, but honestly, this is a conversation about Aaron's pizza. It's amazing. And there's a great backstory to it too. On this episode, we hear about Aaron's wild career as a private chef working for NBA stars and tech icons and how the pandemic led to his amazing pop-up and restaurant. It's such a great talk and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:47Aaron Lindell, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you. You're a Michigan guy like myself. That's right. Not like a Michigan man. We didn't attend the University of Michigan. But, you know, or did you attend the University of Michigan? I did. So you are a Michigan man. I'm not a Michigan man. I'm like a half-Michigan man. You can be a Michigan man. You can still be a Michigan man. Yeah. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in a small town sort of situated between Flint and Lansing, the town is called Corona people even from Michigan don't know what that place is it's like I think our we're at like 3000 people or something like that I'm one of those people I don't know where that is it's right off M21 I don't know if that's something that means anything center of the state closer to Flint than Lansing but also it's its own thing It's kind of situated in the midst of a bunch of kind of corn and soybean fields.

2:51It's corn and soybean country. Corn and soybean country. Let me ask you, what was pizza like growing up in this part of Central Michigan? I think it was a few, I guess you had a few different options, right? We'll start local. just small mom and pop pizzerias that are essentially doing takeout and delivery only. And it's round. It's something that someone might describe as New York style, but not at all. Not at all. No. There's like more sugar in the dough. Yeah, sugar in the dough and then like a heavy hand of sugar in the sauce. Yeah, exactly. Really, really key to that whole thing. Yeah. and then you know I think the Midwest Michigan specifically were responsible for like most of the pizza that's consumed in the United States because of that's where so many of the national chains were launched yeah I mean they're like the founding fathers right you know there's like a version of like the signing of the Declaration of Independence for pizza in Michigan with Domino's and Little Caesars yes so for me it was the hut I think Oh.

4:05And in the 80s and 90s, our Pizza Hut and a lot of Pizza Huts were actually full-fledged restaurants with a true pizza parlor. With the lamps. Lamps, dimly lit, giant booths, big salad bar. Sometimes that salad bar had all-you-could-eat pizza attached to it. So that was a big part of it. I was on my own a lot, like only child. so Friday nights I was ordering pizza for myself from Pizza Hut that pan like fried so good style pan pizza I'm sorry I'm just like so good it was honestly like that was a different and people talk about this that you know those chains were truly different at that time like the recipes were different pizzas were going into an oven not necessarily all conveyor or crank it out style.

5:04Yeah, I don't know. I think it's been a long time since I've been to a Pizza Hut, but I definitely attach a lot of my, there's just a lot from, and also like pizza is just this, always this nostalgic thing. So you choose your style early on and that's the one that you're gonna think about forever and ever, right? Did you ever have the chance to eat and try the Bigfoot pizza at Pizza Hut? No, and I don't know that I've actually, I don't know what it is. It was a pizza that was launched around 91, and it was like a promo during the Super Bowl. And for whatever reason, the cheese, and I'm going to look up the Wikipedia, and I'll maybe link to it in the show notes.

5:46There's like a different cheese. It was like a higher fat content. And it was like they like lost money on it and had to discontinue it. Okay. So no big fuck for you. Yeah, and then I guess there's this sort of other one hanging there that's, I don't know, bars and taverns that serve pizza. Let's get into that, the bar style, the tavern style in Michigan. It's unique. Yes. I had one in my hometown. They're all a little bit different. But you're going to see a round pizza cut into squares, the classic party cut. Yeah, yeah. Um, and, uh, it's going to be, you know, focus on very minimal dough and a lot of toppings, um, heavy on the cheese.

6:31It feels like a, maybe a cracker. Yeah. Like an hors d 'oeuvre in a way. Yes. You know? Um, and it's, well, of course you can be in, you can be in a tavern and as a child with your parents, um, and, and eat that pizza. But I think the idea is that you're kind of there eating that pizza and consuming a decent amount of beer. Yeah, it's padding in a way. Great history of that pizza. I wanted to just talk about your experience with pizza. It all leads to this idea and this question about your own pizza styles at Quarter Sheets, which I've been able to try finally. I think this is my third attempt.

7:09I did wait in the line and I got in and it was amazing. You're laughing. and you know it's it's the realness of dining at quarter sheets you got a way in line that's totally cool i'm down with that your sicilian slice man it really it like changed the game for me a little bit i think the sesame on the crust makes me feel like this is more bread this is like a bread baking exercise more than a pizza exercise and i hope you take that as a compliment what inspires this style and i know we will get into the multiple styles of quarter sheets but this style in particular yeah um this one came um came along after we were doing uh that what we're calling detroitish yeah um it's you know there is we serve we started serving a pizza during our pop-up phase that was definitely detroit leaning uh just from a geometric standpoint it looks and feels that way um i wanted something that was gonna be i think we were jokingly referring to the Sicilian as sort of diet quarter sheets I wanted something that was a little yeah not so thick um I needed to put a name on it um and the pan that I use for that one is a Sicilian style pan I don't know that that that slice necessarily lines up with what everyone thinks of when they're going for that Sicilian slice but um I really wanted to start using like some you know some different cheeses uh maybe some fancy olive oil from time to time stuff that doesn't make sense for me to put on a deeper pan-style pizza with a lot more moths and just like stuff that is going to get in the way of, you know, a little bit of basil, some nice oil, some nice cheese.

8:49And it kind of grew from there. And it's honestly like if I had to do it again where I'm at with it now, that's what the focus of the restaurant would be. I like to hear that because I feel like, I mean, Detroit-ish is cool. And like I didn't try that slice, but I'm sure it's amazing. But, you know, I like the way that you're being progressive with the idea of pizza being not in a box. Well, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to sometimes. Yes. Sometimes. Yes. In the box. Yeah. Well, and it's that one has continued to change. I think you mentioned the sesame crust. First of all, I think coming from the Midwest, we're always trying to, like, mess around with the edge crust.

9:30Like there's we're not there's we can't leave it alone. there's going to be some garlic butter or something you're doing something yeah to what so that once you're at the the last bites you're still you're not doing bored and leaving it like the bone no one wants a pizza where the kid is leaving the bones that's right so eat that crust so and we don't see a lot of crust coming back at uh at the restaurant which i'm so i'm i'm uh you know mission accomplished i guess yeah but the you mentioned the sesame seed um crust that was something that's actually a more recent iteration of this uh sicilian slice that we do and it was let's see i i was in new york maybe two years ago kind of near the beginning of the the the chrissy's yeah uh pop-up that was happening out of his apartment oh it started at the apartment then yeah in his uh in his famous uh famously baked out of a off-brand uh kind of shit oven yeah which is like literally every rental apartment in new york yeah like has the same off-brand shit oven um yeah yeah and and against all odds probably the best pizza i had while i was there on that trip um but he had uh his special when we ate it was uh long hots uh just lightly caramelized i remember this pizza like so deeply uh lightly caramelized um yellow onion i believe um yeah cheese sauce whole deal and then this sesame seed crust that that took me back to I I was like this is amazing and I remembered this Sicilian style pizza that was served uh at a place called Thanos Lamplighter in Ann Arbor Michigan and it was like sheet tray style Sicilian pizza with a sesame edge crust.

11:17And I had forgotten about it for so long. And in that moment, I was like, when I get home, this is what we'll do. We're doing it. And like your sesame too, you're like using good sesame. You're using a lot of it. It's like not just window dressing. It's like actually a flavor profile. Sure, it's intentional. I think, well, Hannah and I both try to be very intentional with what ingredients we use and how we use it. So, yeah, we really go for it. The amount of sesame seeds floating around that restaurant are actually sometimes problematic. But, yeah, we started using a great product from Japanese Pantry, this golden sesame, and moved away because I wanted to start using that maybe in different ways.

12:07but yeah we use a toasted white sesame seed at this moment that I believe it's really important that that goes on as a toasted sesame because you don't actually get that toast during the baking process you have to pre toast it or have it be fully formed before you put it on I get that let me ask you about other styles that you're doing you know you mentioned the Detroit ish and the second part is like why devote so much time and brain space and energy to pizza what draws you that's really difficult that's a difficult one um because i arrived here somewhat um by accident in the pizza space yeah the pizza space um space i feel that's very like very tech bro of me like you're working the pizza space yeah i know but it is like it it um once you go in you do you will um and i've heard this over and over again from pizza makers and you know you are talking about dough so bread bakers and uh once you go in you you may be consumed by it and so yeah once i did kind of um accidentally decide to enter the the game i guess we'll say we'll call the game i like the better um yeah i i couldn't not devote my time to it yeah i don't i think uh pizza pizza spoke to me in a way where it is uh like pizza chef or whatever pizza, pizza maker, like you are really serving one thing.

13:37So the, the dough takes you to a place like how you think about it, what you see other people doing. Um, I'm still a student. Um, so I'm, I, I am just fully, I feel like I'm in the beginning phases of it, of, of being consumed by it. So the world's very big and, uh, it's just easy to, to, to look around and see what other people are doing um really hone what i am doing yeah it sounds like you're like a real student in the game you're going to new york you're like going to christy's but you're going to other spots you're definitely probably eating around la you're seeing what's going on and just like i mean i like this idea of the single topic like you know i think about shakuni culture in japan where you know rice is considered um you know a real a real expert level product like you have to like know how to make it over years and years yes yeah yeah like i if i if i am in this 20 years from now i will still be learning i think that's a must for anything for anything that you approach especially in food yeah um just i don't know i'm like preoccupied with staying relevant you know relevant do you think about that aaron i'm wondering you you you were no you're preoccupied with staying relevant what does that mean like i'm i got a lot of questions here yeah i i mean And I guess that really is, I don't know, that's kind of born out of like maybe I wasn't in the restaurant game for quite some time.

15:01So I actually was like not part of it. So, you know, working as a private chef on your own, you're really on your own. So I think relevancy is working angles. I'm a work in the angles kind of person. So if I can find something to tease out of, you know, the process or something new I'm working on and it presents itself as maybe like a cool angle, something to bring people in, that's something that I look for and appreciate and sort of chase, I guess, the angles. I like it. So you mentioned you weren't in the restaurant game. You were private chefing. Yes. So what was that like? What's the private chef world like for you?

15:44What types of clients did you have? And how long did you do it? Let's see. I'd done it on and off. Let's see. Did the restaurant stuff for a minute. Just worked as a line cook for a couple years. Did culinary school at the same time. I went from that. Let's see. After about five years of cooking maybe in restaurants, I ended up taking a private chef gig outside of Detroit for This was a culinary school connection, but uh, but it was for one of for one of the Pistons Chauncey Billups. Oh, right great guy my first client and an excellent just an excellent person like I Truly enjoyed working for him and you know, he's like a Like a humble guy and like yeah had a young family So that was like a very just like family style food simple food done.

16:38Well, yeah What are you making for Chauncey? I think he's a coach now, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, then he was still very much in it. I was doing big breakfasts for him just to load him up for the day. And then I wouldn't see him until kind of later on, but after everything else. But I was cooking for he and his family. So, yeah, that moved me to New York for a year. The Pistons connection and these were like dark times for the Knicks. I believe. Oh, yeah. And I wouldn't actually, I wouldn't tell anyone what I was, like, I wouldn't talk about my job because, like, people, like, Knicks fans, like, hated this current, that current incarnation of the Knicks.

17:23Yeah, tough days. Isaiah Thomas being in charge. People didn't like him. Wait, you were cooking for Isaiah Thomas? No, I was cooking for Eddie Curry. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I'm not talking shit about Eddie, but people weren't excited about the franchise in that moment. And he was brought in in a controversial way. Anyway. I think Eddie's contract was the issue. Yeah, yeah. The perception, I mean, it was not a perception, the real numbers. The weird thing about sports is they're very transparent about how much they make. He was not delivering for the amount of money he was made. It was a bad contract.

17:58We obviously all hate the ownership of the Knicks. Even if we're Knicks fans, I'm not a Knicks fan, but he's awful. My word's not yours. But when you're cooking for Eddie, like, are you making his favorite food? Are you making something that's like nutritionally balanced? Because I feel like we don't hear about athletes that often, but they've got to be like, it's got to be a really challenging gig for you. Well, it is in the way where you have different pressures. you'll have someone from the organization like asking you to like count units yeah um which is that's a different skill set than just being a cook which is what i was you know so i wouldn't i'm not a nutritionist so um you know you can give me some guidelines and i can work within that but you know ultimately like yeah these guys are young and still pleasure seeking and they just want what they want yeah and so that's just most that was my job i was employed by you know by the player so that's i mean he's the client so he you gotta like need food he wants are you like going to his house i mean is he living in manhattan somewhere and you're cooking in his kitchen or are you drunk just dropping food yeah i was commuting up to uh white plans oh wow for that on the train or driving on the train with the food no no i'd get up there yeah run around do some do my shopping up there but yeah that was such a weird I wasn't like a sports guy in that way either that was just a job but it did take me to New York which was which is great I mean that's that is one of the perks to that job is you can travel around it a little bit and you can just move to a new city for a gig and get paid right away you know so after the gig cooking for Eddie Curry by the way did you cook curry?

19:51I did not sorry I could not resist that that never came into it you never were like I'm throwing Massaman into the mix right now for you Mr. Curry it didn't happen and it didn't even occur to me I don't know that gig sort of was on pause so for the summer they do something else I think they go to New Jersey at that time that was so long ago by the way this is like real dark ages of the Knicks This is like 2010, I think. I was dating someone who wanted to relocate to San Francisco. And it kind of headed out there ahead of me. And we were like, okay, I don't have anything going for the summer. I was able to get a very part-time gig in Atherton working for a family who had a beautiful property with basically a small farm on it.

20:54Rough life. Yeah, the assignment was I'm going to meet with the gardener every day and ask for what I need for the day and then start to finish, cook a lunch and a dinner based on what's available. Aaron, I mean, this is like kind of dope, right? I mean, kind of a cool. Well, it was a really great way to begin to understand what it is to cook in California. Yeah. And honestly, like a great opportunity. And these clients, I've had a, and had sidebar, an unusual experience, I think, in the private chef world where I've had excellent clients the whole way through. I feel like I hear mostly good stories, frankly, because the money's better.

21:45So if you're like getting paid, you kind of let it happen, you know, let it go. But I've heard mostly good stories, frankly, yeah, myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you can be as careful as you can and still end up, you know, in some rough scenarios. You never really know. But, yeah, I've been fortunate. And it's mostly just been, you know, it's moved me around. I've been able to, like, go to different places. been able to you know make some money and then decide to dip back into the restaurant world when I wanted to so you're in the Bay Area you're cooking at this farm that probably had a really cool outdoor kitchen I had so much it was just kind of it was really crazy I hadn't seen anything like that in my life yet is this like tech money I would imagine no it was like old white gloves San Francisco oh cool it was like really really funny yeah An old family.

22:45So, yeah, how do you end up into restaurants? Let's continue the story. I love your journey. I think I was in Oakland at this point. I did eventually end up in San Francisco. So I'm there, and I didn't know how long I would be there. I didn't have a plan for a next move. And I thought it would be a lost opportunity if I didn't cook in San Francisco. at a cool restaurant. I didn't really know. I hadn't developed really a style at that point yet. I didn't really know what that would be. So I wanted to start to figure out what that would be, and what made sense was to work for a great chef. I think I spent like four or five months I would go to Tartine every week And try to force my resume into someone's hands And I didn't have a resume Like I didn't I had, you know, a string of private chefs You had Eddie Curry and Chanton Bills Which is cool if you like sports And some restaurants in Ann Arbor, Michigan You know, like I Which didn't mean anything to anyone And at that time, like people were working for almost nothing just to get some experience at that place um so i was in a long line of people who were way more capable than i was if i'm being real um and and it wasn't going so i'm like well why don't why don't i shift my focus around and actually start like putting my resume in the hands of like multiple restaurants and you really wanted to work at tartine it sounds like i really i was i was drawn by i mean it was such a scene at that time too like it i couldn't i wanted to be connected to the community that's a big way in yeah um so that it just made sense to me um and i and i wanted to learn how to bake bread i that and that's that would that would have been the place yeah chad robertson not bad yeah pretty good good yeah pretty good baker and i'd had the books and like i'm not really like that kind of learner yeah i need i needed to be there yeah um so chef tell me what to do i'll do it like a million times over yeah yeah yeah um and so i ended up uh i had placed my resume with a restaurant called Catonia, which is Michael Tusk's sister restaurant to at that time was the sister restaurant to Quint's, which is kind of like the fine dining end of it.

25:27Catonia was very new. I think they had just been in their like third month, fourth month of being open when I applied. And they just had a bunch of turnovers. So they were hiring. And I kind of got in through a side door. I don't think I technically had the chops. but his chef de cuisine I don't know maybe he saw something I have no idea but I went in I staged I had to cook a dish for this guy like anything off the dome yeah like I think someone put like some rock cod in my hands and then put me at this Tuscan grill and I don't know it probably wasn't great I got something to the plate but But I think they just wanted to see what happened.

26:18I think that's a cool way to just kind of see if someone's at least comfortable enough to go to a walk-in and pull a few things. Do you do that when you're staffing at Quarter Sheets? No. No, I don't do that. I think for me, I want to see someone be in the room, see how they move around. Honestly, I'm stoked if someone grabs a broom and in a moment where nothing's happening. Like if you see that happen, you hire that person immediately because it's not that like, oh, they're going to clean up for me. It's that like they're they've looked to see. They're actively looking at the space. Yeah, they've looked for something to do.

26:55They're looking. They're not looking to be told. So I don't I don't need a I don't need like a badass line cook. I don't need someone who who's going to just like pull something random from our from our reach in and put a dish up. That comes later. I'm stoked for that too, but that's later. So yeah, I was hired at this northern Italian-focused restaurant. That's where I learned about California cuisine, really. I mean, I learned a lot of very, very deeply the most esoteric pasta dishes that exist. Like Amelia Romagna, like that kind of world. Yeah, just we had a, I am higher grade now and I had an applicant come in for a trial shift.

27:51He's from Bergamo. And I was like, oh, yeah, like you guys have this famous, this cassichelli. It's filled with beef and raisins. And he's like, how on earth do you know that? Yeah. Like, how do you know that? And I was like, I don't know. just like someone showed me at this restaurant. It's like, that is so specific. That only exists there. Like, that's it. That's like the regional, that's the tradition at one town. Yeah. So. Wait, did you hire this person? Yeah, actually. Good, yeah. We bonded. It sounds like, I mean, are you going to wrap up your pasta program? Honestly, I would love that. I'm still, yeah, I still very much feel like going back to being a student, like I'm so stoked if someone has something to show me.

28:38I love it. Well, let's move on from San Francisco. And I think I'm going to link to the interview I did with your partner, Hannah Ziskin, and you met there at that restaurant. Is that correct? That's right. And so you both decided, and she tells a great story. You eventually moved to L.A. and you established quarter sheets. I'm like skipping steps, but I want to get into pizza talk because I think that's important. What are you guys trying to do when you're launching quarter sheets? We joke that this didn't happen with heaps and heaps of intention. But I think, first of all, it was something that happened because of the world sort of stopping because of a pandemic.

29:22And there was free time after the kind of rearranging your brain a little bit and trying to figure out what is actually happening, both in the world and then on an existential level. We were accidentally trying to work on a project together. Surprise, surprise. Because Hannah had lost her job. Hannah had lost her job, yeah. Honestly, I could have worked through the entire pandemic because I was doing something that became like really necessary. I was doing more personal chef work, which was a lot of, you know, I wasn't doing so much like hospitality stuff. I was like going in, setting up some food and leaving, you know.

30:11And so during the pandemic, that turned into like I was putting together like a box of not just prepared meals, but some produce that I was able to go and get because of some accounts that I had that aren't necessarily available to everyone else. So I, you know, I could have just kept doing that. And I did keep doing that into, you know, into it even while we were working on this together. So I would be on the west side doing a food drop and then trying to haul ass in what later became L.A. L.A. actually, I'm misremembering this because I was able to hit. There's a beautiful moment where there's no traffic in L.A.

30:56And I would. New York was the same way. I like added clients because of that. So I'd have like three stops all on the west side. But I was getting over there in like 25 minutes, which is not that's not the reality. So I was doing that, bouncing around. And again, I was in a situation where I had great clients. And they wanted me to keep doing it. And Hannah did lose her job. And almost immediately, I think after two weeks, started baking at home again, which she hadn't been doing in a while. She wasn't baking. She hadn't baked, I think, for fun, just for sport in the longest time. I can't remember.

31:38She was getting away from restaurants, and then suddenly when we moved to L.A., the idea was that she was getting out of restaurants and then suddenly just went right back in to work for M. Georgina to work for Melissa Pirello. And the restaurant closes, and she's very much in baking mode and has all the stuff at the house. Because she told me that she was able to get it from the restaurant. Yeah, and then Melissa was super generous. She sent Hannah home with not just a bunch of flour and stuff to bake with, but we were baking clams and doing steak night. And I put on a suit and she got dressed up.

32:18Just the two of us. How cute. And, you know, dust settles there. There's not much to do. She starts baking again. I see that she's having a great time doing this. And I think see this process happening and see that, oh, now she's now she's like delivering bread to people and people are coming to the house and picking up cakes. And and I see, you know, I see this happening. I see what is, you know, restaurants are not open right now, but I see I can kind of see that there's like a little bit of hospitality creeping back into this to this. And in like a pandemic way, which is which is very distanced, but still.

32:59It's distance and people are masked up. Personal. But there's an opportunity that exists now suddenly that didn't exist before. Nobody was coming to our porch to pick up a box of handmade croissants and cookies. That never would have happened. so while she was working on that stuff I started working on the pizza end of it well what lit the fire for pizza at that point, had you been making pizza for clients? I had been not since San Francisco I did work for a few years for a client in Palo Alto who hired me knowing that I could run a wood burning oven that was a big part of it and they didn't have it at the time and they were like, do you they didn't have this thing built out.

33:54They were like, will you use this if we do it? And I said, absolutely, 100%. I'm not just going to make pizza. I'm going to figure out at every single opportunity, I'm going to jam some stuff in this wood burning oven, like roasts, everything. But pizza was a weekly thing. They abided by the, you know, it's pizza night in America thing. So it's like Friday comes and maybe they have 20 people over. Maybe it's just six of them. but I'm running the wood burning up. Dude, Apple stock price is doing pretty well for these people. Yes, it's a good time. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the pizza thing is something that I chased early on.

34:33Even back like, you know, when I was just, you know, in my 20s and having people over for a house party, I'm going to make the pizza for that party. And like that might be sheet tray pizza. It might be something I'm throwing on. So you had the base when you decided to do a real established pick it up at our house kind of pop up. Yeah. I had some I think I had some foundational elements in place. Yeah. But I didn't have like this is my style. Yeah. I think I'd always been trying to make something that was like Neapolitan, which is it never felt like fully me. It also didn't work in like a normal oven.

35:16You can't do that in your home oven at all. And I happen to know that sheet tray pizza, pan pizza in general, pretty forgiving. Like your oven could only heat to 475 or 450. Maybe if you're lucky you're at 550. You can make it work. That's where I landed. There was also, like it would be dishonest to not mention that Detroit style pizza had a moment. Or is maybe still having a moment. Right in that time. like right in that time and I wasn't the first person we were falling hard for the freak yeah I wasn't the first person to figure out that I can crank out pizza yeah Detroit style pizza or pan style pizza out of my home oven like fairly easily so um definitely other people in LA were doing it around me so it just kind of it it made sense and and then I wanted to you know I thought maybe I would have something else to say so it could be unique yeah and we also were selling more of a package so that was unique yeah well I think that's the cool the cool factor the cool the it about what you're doing at quarter sheets is that obviously quarter sheets is the pie but then Hannah's doing princess cake or slab cake or or birthday cake and it's two things pizza and cake it's like literally the eighth eight-year-old birthday party of the dreams which is probably what some corny food writer has written about your restaurant but i'm trying not to be that on a podcast but it's true though yeah but it's absolutely true it's like exactly what we want yeah it's a good it's a good package like i i didn't really fully understand how hard people would go for it it didn't make sense to me at the time i was like this pizza this cake i liked that we were kind of you know in the beginning it was all uh sheet tray focused and i was like oh yeah it's a sheet tray themed yeah like she was baking these layers in sheet trays.

37:10I started baking in quarter sheets, which is like how the name sort of came about. I had to stop doing that because like the walls on a sheet tray are not actually high enough to keep this. As you're baking this pizza where you cheese all the way to the edge, all this oil gets kicked off and out of the pan unless you have these like really deep pans. Which is why the smell of a pan restaurant has a very unique, that burning oil. Yes, so that burning oil actually ended up many times just like going directly onto the floor of my oven and causing a fire inside the oven so the so i had to move away from the quarter sheet the name stuck yeah the name stuck but you're i mean we know your style is not just sheet quarter sheet style so i want to fast forward to opening your your your in your location in echo park if you if you're this far in the interview you know what happened i mean it's truly one of the most remarkable openings in LA.