Flashback: Scott Wiener's Rise to Pizza Royalty and Why He'd Rather Make Pizza Than Sell It

Editor’s note: This deep-dive conversation with Scott Wiener was originally published as part of PMQ’s “Chef’s Corner” series on PMQ.com in January 2018. Wiener is the founder of Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York as well as co-founder of Slice Out Hunger. As Slice Out Hunger gears up for its annual Pizza Across America campaign to combat food insecurity, we’re revisiting this fun, far-ranging conversation—trimmed and edited from the original—with one of the pizza community’s best-loved figures.

By Brian Hernandez

If you passed him on the street you probably wouldn’t recognize him unless you knew him. Under the glasses and beard, he looks like any regular New Yorker on his way to work or play. But if you saw him getting off his signature yellow school bus in front of a New York pizzeria, followed by a gaggle of pizza-eyed tourists, you would get it right away. “That’s Scott Wiener of Scott’s Pizza Tours!”

It’s like seeing pizza royalty walk among the commoners. Or at least a walking pizza encyclopedia. But he still somehow found the time to sit down with me and have a conversation about pizza ingredients (think pineapple and peppadews), pizza tours and his history with the pizza community.

Brian: I’m sitting here with the infamous Scott Wiener of Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York. Thank you so much for spending a little time with me in the Chef’s Corner. How are you doing today, Scott?

Scott: I’m feeling quite infamous. Thanks for having me here today, Brian.

Brian: How did your pizza obsession begin? What is your earliest pizza memory?

Scott: I don’t remember ever discovering pizza. It was always just there. Memories of sitting in the car, the smell of the pizza and the cardboard, and the thrill of it: “We’re getting pizza when we get home!” It just had a warmth that was physically inspirational to me.

Brian: So, the cardboard itself had a big impact on your earliest pizza memories? Just the smell of the pizza boxes?

Scott: Absolutely. Pizza always came out of a box. We would go out for pizza sometimes, but more often, we would bring it in or get delivery. So, the pizza box was part of the whole excitement.

Brian: Now did that lead to your obsession with pizza boxes? I heard you collect them.

Scott: I do not think that the experience of handling pizza in a box is what directly led to me collecting pizza boxes and having a world record for it, but who knows. Maybe subconsciously that trigger was there.

Brian: You mention the world record for pizzas boxes. That’s a Guinness World Record I assume?

Scott: Absolutely. A Guinness World Record for the largest pizza box collection. In 2013, I had over 600 pizza boxes, and that was a world record. I’ve kept collecting over the years and now I have over 1300 [as of late 2017], and I don’t think anyone else out there is really collecting them at all.

Brian: How did you decide that giving pizza tours was what you wanted to do?

Scott: It was totally weird. I used to go with my friends to pizzerias for fun. Not uncommon in the New York area. I started meeting tons of people saying, “Oh, I’ve been doing pizza crawls for 20 years.” I was facetiously like ‘Yeah…ok, cool.” You just go around, eat a lot of pizzas, then go home and take a nap. But that all started to change on my birthday 10 years ago. I rented a school bus, invited a bunch of friends and said, “Let’s just drive around town and eat pizza.” It was so much fun I decided to keep doing it.

Brian: Why just pizza tours? Did you ever have any ambition to go into the pizza business for yourself?

Scott: The pizza industry had never and still doesn’t truly interest me, for myself, I mean. I don’t want to own a pizzeria. I love making pizza, but on a small scale. It really became more about celebrating pizza. I thought to myself, “Can I make a living being a pizza fan?” and that’s what this is. I just love pizza. I never really thought about tours at first. I thought about what could I do? Should I blog? Write a book? Take pictures? There was no Instagram back then. We were only a few years into food blogging, but I didn’t have an internet connection at the time, so I couldn’t do that anyways. Then I thought, “What’s a good medium to tell these stories?” Tours just seemed right. There are tons of tours in New York. I met a lot of people who do food tours, and I started going to meetings of the Tour Guides Association. Then I studied to take the test to get my Tour Guides License. I failed it the first time. I took it again and I passed. That’s when I started “Scott’s Pizza Tours.”

Photo by Robb Alvey

Brian: After many years of doing these tours, I know you’ve been to a lot of pizzerias numerous times. What are some mistakes you notice as a consumer that can help out anyone getting into the business?

Scott: The bigger mistakes tend to be made by the established pizzerias. They often say, “I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I know what I’m doing, don’t change anything.” Then you see the new ones come along, the little whipper-snappers, and they are better in a lot of ways. They’re paying more attention to the consumers. They’re less concerned with only dealing with the bottom line.

When you’re a new place it’s all about passion, and most owners know they are not going to make a dime for at least a few months, maybe even a year or two. New places are utilizing social media to help spread the word of mouth. Using Instagram to showcase successes and mistakes on the menu. I have people on my tour, that, when we stop at a certain place, they’ll say, “Oh, that’s the pizzeria with the funny shaped pizzas I saw on Instagram” or something to that effect. The older pizzerias tend to not have as much social media presence. I’ve seen them doing things like having too much bench flour or an inconsistent bake. There’s just too much flour on the crusts sometimes, it really affects the taste. But you don’t want to tell them what to do. They’d just say, “That’s just how we do it.”

Brian: Do you think loyalty programs are a good thing for independents to start up?

Scott: Definitely. It’s all about loyalty. Consumers shop for food in a few different ways. Some shop for taste, and good luck if they do, because all you have to do is make one bad pie and that’s it, unfortunately. Or they do it for value. “What’s the lowest price I can get for the most volume of food?” And when you start shooting for that, you’re not shooting for the stars, you start shooting for the toes. So, you could do that, and you could be in business for a while, but then you can’t expect people to be coming to you for taste. Sometimes people look for speed. They always say you can get things cheap, hot and good. It’s hard to hit all three. You really have to pick two of those. But if you can hit the trifecta, then hazaah! You’ve got it made!

Brian: What is one of your biggest success tips for our readers?

Scott: My No. 1 tip is to definitely allow yourself to “get obsessed.” Whether it is the décor, quality of the product, speed of service…allow yourself to become totally obsessed with it and understand it. Because when you do, you become open to more opportunities and more ideas. For my business, I allow myself to get really into it. The more I get into it, the more the press picks up on it. If you stay quiet about how into your business you are, well, that’s just not a great idea. The more people know about and talk about you, the more they are doing your promotion for you.

Brian: So, pizza making. You’ve been around it for a while learning at the hands of the greats. What is one ingredient you will never use?

Scott: Ooh, I honestly don’t think there is a single ingredient I would never use.

Brian: Not even pineapple?

Scott: I’m way into pineapple. It’s delicious. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.

Brian: Hazaah! We’ll give a virtual high five on that one. So, there is no ingredient that makes you cringe?

Scott: Look, I’m not that big on broccoli, but if you chop it up really fine and do something creative with it, of course I’ll eat it.

Brian: What a very progressive attitude on that subject. I love it. On a similar note, what is one ingredient you haven’t played with that you would like to get your hands on?

Scott: You know, I’ve never got my hands on a bunch of peppadew. I never do peppadew. I’ve had them a few times; they’re sweet, they’re rich.

Brian: What would you do if you got some peppadew?

Scott: I’m thinking, a peppadew, post-oven prosciutto with a ricotta cheese and maybe a lemon zest on top. You know, sweet, salty, acid. I just want to play with it. I really like trying things that are different. A sausage and garlic pizza is great, but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.

Click to check out Scott’s own pizza creation (complete with recipe video), the Mo-Heato!

Brian: Have you ever had a pizza industry job? Been a cook or delivery driver?

Scott: I did work at a couple of pizzerias, but only for short term. Most of it was while I was running the tours. My friends who owned pizzerias would say, “Hey, if you want to get any more experience, come in and work any time you want.” So, I would go in and work, but I’ve never had that quintessential high school or college job at the pizzeria. It’s been more to just get a fun experience myself.

Brian: Well, not to be rude, but how does someone with your limited experience working in the industry become so knowledgeable about that industry and the history of pizza?

Scott: Well, the history was the easier part. I just paid attention and researched it. There were a few books out there when I started about pizza history. Not that many, but I would read them. I’d find something interesting and then research that as well. What else can I get from that source? A story, a picture? That’s what led me down the rabbit hole.

For my tours I thought, I can’t just take people to Lombardi’s, I should show them some old pictures of the pizzeria, frame the history. Then, when you track down the old pictures you start asking more questions. From there you just start digging more. It gets deep. I still research all the time. If I’m knowledgeable about pizza, it’s because I just keep researching. And after years of doing the tour now, we get mostly pizza nerds and professionals. People who want to see how the operations work and learn about the business, not just eat pizza. I tell people, “If you want to just eat pizza in New York, here’s the list on my website. If you want to learn about pizza, come on a tour.”

Brian: So, let’s try something, Scott. You sound like you are very open to all ingredients. I don’t buy it. Let’s play the “Scott’s Lightning Round.” I’m going to throw some toppings at you. Tell me whether you would use them and what you would do with them.

Scott: Bring it on. I used to have lightning bolt sideburns in college!

Brian: Anchovies!

Scott: Absolutely use them. I’ll take those anchovies and mash them down and make them into a paste. Then I’ll put some tomatoes on top of that. Then I’ll add little dots of mozzarella. Then cover it in Parmigiana Reggiano. Bake that, then hit it with some olive oil when it comes out. Then those anchovies are like ghosts in the distance, haunting you.

Brian: Brussels sprouts!

Scott: Oh, most definitely. I’ll roast them up a little bit first, but just a little. After about five minutes, I’ll gently break them apart and throw them on the crust. Then, I guess the classic pairing would maybe be with pancetta or some kind of fatty meat on a white pizza, with some garlic too. I’d add the broken-up sprouts, then break up the fatty meat, like a raw sausage, over it. As it cooks, all that fat will render into the pie and add all that flavor, but it will also help protect the sprouts from burning.

Brian: Caviar!

Scott: I’d have to do that after the bake, and most likely on a white pie. It’s pretty salty, I wouldn’t want it to conflict with acid from tomatoes. I would slice the pie first, then put a little tiny dollop of caviar on each slice. That seems kind of obvious, but whatever. I’ll do it anyway, I’m not a professional pizza maker. I got nothing to prove!

Brian: OK, I have to ask about one more…pineapple!

Scott: Pineapple! I’d cut the pineapple in half, probably roast that first at a low temperature for a long period of time. I’d want to get it really loose so I can take a fork to it. I don’t want to just put slices on a pie. I want to razzle dazzle it! You know what I mean? Then put some kind of fatty pork on top, as well as something hot. Some kind of pepper maybe. Jalapeño is kind of obvious. Or maybe hit it with some spicy honey! Then you have the sweet, the hot and the salty. A nice trifecta.

Brian, Scott, I cannot thank you enough for this great interview. You are a huge part of our industry, and I really appreciate the time you took to let us see what it’s like inside your brain. You are the biggest Pizza Nerd out there, can I call you that? We’d love to have you come visit us in Oxford.

Scott: You can call me whatever you want. I’d love to visit. I’ve never been to Oxford.

Brian: Well, I am in awe of your knowledge of pizza, the industry and history. As always, a class act! Thank you Scott.

For more information about Scott Wiener and his pizza tours, please visit scottspizzatours.com