Interviews

Richard Payne of Dough and Behold had been making pizzas for a year or two before he heard about LloydPans during the pandemic. He had just started @dough_and_behold, and through conversations with the pizzaiolo community, he found that LloydPans was a brand that received high recommendations. Payne spoke to us about the pizza and dough making process with LloydPans, geeking out on the industry and how he’s built a pop-up and collaboration business from across the pond. 

Before the pandemic, Sanctuary Pizza Owner Ryan Mondragon was working for a pizza catering company, traveling for birthdays, weddings and parties. Once the pandemic happened, the company moved to Nashville, leaving Mondragon without a job like so many others. With the knowledge he had after 7 years at the previous company, he offered local COVID-friendly pizza pop ups out of his backyard and quickly realized that he was going to be in the full-time pizza business once again. He invested in trucks and a portable Ooni oven — all he needed was the perfect pizza pan.

LloydPans partnered with Vic Rose of Cuisine University to support Pizza Master Classes — one in Boca Raton and the other in Naples — with 12x18x1.5 inch Sicilian-Style Pans and 10x14 Detroit-Style Pans. We spoke with Vic and Dom about LloydPans, the love of pizza and challenges that come with teaching pizza making.

In part 2 of our conversation with San Francisco-based Flour + Water Pizzeria’s Co-Founder Ryan Pollnow and Sous Chef Elliott Armstrong, we dive deeper into menu development. Then we tour the kitchen where the pizza making magic happens!

We spoke with Co-Executive Chef and Partner Ryan Pollnow for a two-part blog that took us deeper into daily life at Flour + Water Pizzeria, from culinary inspiration to our curiosity over an 800-degree wood burning oven imported from Italy. 

Innovation reigned at this year’s National Restaurant Association Show, and the LloydPans booth was hopping with the latest foodservice equipment, bakeware and pizza pans. More than 57,000 attendees were treated to interactive displays, the latest solutions for the foodservice industry and even mobile robot servers from the approximate 2,100 suppliers on the show floor.

U.S. Pizza Team Member Vittoria Trupiano has made quite the mark in the pizza industry at a young age. Paving her way with her own life path and a determination to inspire young women is just one of the many aspects we discussed in our LloydPans exclusive interview.

Nestled in Newberry, Mich., is Seder’s Pizza, the town’s original pizzeria and sandwich shop. Since Jo Tranchita took over the restaurant a couple of years ago, her goal was to keep tradition in place — with a twist. She’s taken employee creativity and mixed their new ideas with her own, creating a menu full of delicious grandma pizzas, rotating sandwiches and a love for competition. We spoke with Tranchita about how LloydPans has helped transform her business and how she approaches pizza making.

After a fourth place finish in the Pan Division at Pizza Expo, Nicole Bean’s star is shining bright. Pizza making runs in her family, but it wasn’t necessarily pre-determined that the Women in Pizza member would follow that path. We talked to Bean about how LloydPans helped her place well in the competition, where she gets her inspiration for new pizzas and her fearless advice to young women starting in the industry.