Every March, Michael Stevens, owner of Palo Mesa Pizza in Arroyo Grande, goes to Las Vegas to roll the dice on his pizza, entering the International Pizza Expo’s Pizza Challenge.
Seven-thousand pizzeria owners and operators like Stevens unite at the annual trade show to try new products and services, attend seminars and demonstrations, and compete.
“It’s big,” Stevens said. “It’s like the Super Bowl for us.”
Participants bring their own ingredients to the competition and cook pizza in front of an audience and a panel of judges, which is made up of previous years’ winners, food critics, chefs, and connoisseurs. Each entry is graded on superior crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings, as well as taste, creativity, and visual appeal.
This year, Stevens entered the Traditional Pizza category, preparing a pizza he regularly makes for his Central Coast customers: house made sausage, fresh banana peppers, and whole milk mozzarella cheese.
“I cooked the Italian sausage on the pizza and then pulled it out of the oven and put the peppers on afterwards so we kept the crunch, kept the flavor,” Stevens explained. “There’s a mixture of contrast in your mouth, on your palate, so you’re eating crunchy and soft and chewy.”
Stevens’ pizza placed first in the Southwest Region Division of the United States and then finished in fifth place for ‘Best Pizza in the World.’
(Two years ago, Stevens came in 21st in the world. Last year, he placed 19th.)
“When you’re amongst your peers, 7 to 10,000 of your peers, and your peers say, ‘That pizza is better than my pizza,’ and that’s what they do; they eat, breathe, and sleep pizza, and they tell you that your pizza is better than theirs, that feels pretty good,” Stevens said.
Stevens has decades of experience in the pizza biz. The Michigan native started in the restaurant industry washing dishes at age 13. By age 16, he had landed his first pizzeria job.
The culinary school-trained chef toiled in fine dining for a while, but his heart belonged to pizza.
Stevens takes pride in creating his own recipes and making everything from the dough to the sausage from scratch.
He founded Palo Mesa Pizza in 2007, at Halcyon and Highway 1 in Arroyo Grande.
He and his wife Kelly opened their second location last August, off of Rancho Parkway in Arroyo Grande, in the Wal-Mart Shopping Center.
They hope to add more Palo Mesa Pizza locations in the next couple of years. The couple also owns and operates Tanner Jack’s restaurant on the mesa in Arroyo Grande.
I recently visited with Stevens over a couple of pizza pies, of course. I just had to taste the award-winning pizza for myself; I enjoyed every bite, even the crust!
“I say dogs hate us—because the humans eat the crust,” Stevens quipped. “I would say that’s what makes our pie.”
He credits his oven at Palo Mesa, where everything is handmade, one at a time.
“It’s art, doing what we do here,” Stevens told me. “We don’t throw it on a conveyor. It doesn’t go in and come out the other end. We really have to pay attention to what we’re doing.”
Palo Mesa Pizza lets you “create your own” pizza or choose from specialty pizzas such as Mesa Meatsa, A Hot Hawaiian, BBQ Chicken, Thai Chicken, Veggie, Greek, and California Chicken.
And that’s not all; Palo Mesa also serves up homemade pasta, calzones, fried chicken, sandwiches, and salads. And like they say, everything is “seasoned with love.”
Sun food and wine columnist Wendy Thies Sell can taste love. Contact her at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 11-18, 2013.