Chef Peter Garces: Everything the Fire Couldn't Take

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Chef Peter Garces didn't open By The Chef Pizza because he needed another job. He built it from the remains of a life that had been completely disrupted. Peter grew up in Brooklyn, where his earliest connection to food came from watching his mother cook. That sense of childhood wonder eventually became a serious culinary pursuit, taking him through culinary school, restaurant kitchens, and some of New York's most respected pizza operations. At Roberta's, he was unexpectedly left alone in front of a thousand-degree oven during a busy lunch rush—and made it through without burning a pie. At Apizza Regionale, the pressure nearly broke him, but it also sharpened his discipline. At Pizza Loves Emily, he saw pizza treated with the same creativity and seriousness as any other culinary craft. Then came Mama's Too. Peter became the primary pizzaiolo during a defining period for the restaurant. The pizzas photographed for its New York Times review were his, and when the review was published, the line wrapped around the block. One night, Peter trusted his instincts, ignored an instruction to limit the display, and filled the window with the full range of pizzas. Jerry Seinfeld walked in, discovered the vodka pie, and kept coming back. Peter finally felt like he belonged. Then his Brooklyn home burned down. The fire took nearly everything and forced him to leave the city that shaped him. When he arrived in Central Florida, his New York résumé did not automatically earn him respect, opportunity, or comparable pay. He had to begin proving himself all over again. With help from his parents, his lifelong friend and business partner Nigel Van Groningen, and the resources of Lakeland's Catapult business incubator, Peter launched a mobile pizza operation and quickly transformed it into a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Today, By The Chef Pizza represents far more than pizza. It carries the discipline Peter learned through martial arts, the knowledge passed down by mentors including Chef JJ Johnson, the experience earned inside demandi