By Charlie Pogacar
Fernando Greco is a pop-up pizza maker in New York City who specializes in Argentine pizza. With over 22,000 followers on Instagram—where he goes by OG Papa Fern or Pizza La Imperial—he could probably make it as a full-time pizza maker at this point. One problem: He refuses to quit his day job, as a special needs teacher in New York City Public Schools.
This summer, with school out of session, Greco decided to go on a pizza quest with his daughter, Sofia, 13. He planned a road trip across the U.S., with the intention of doing pop-ups and collabs with pizzeria owners he’d become acquainted with at industry events and on social media. For Greco, the road trip would be a throwback of sorts.
“Before [I was making] pizza and before I had a daughter, I would backpack all around the world,” Greco said. “So I was always adventurous. I was always an on-the-fly type of person.”
Related: How a Man Who Has ‘Never Been Good at Anything’ Became Great at Making Pizza
And this would be a bit of an on-the-fly road trip. Greco, who hopes to make the trip an annual event, put out a call on Instagram to see who wanted to host him and learn a bit more about Argentine pizza. An Argentinian national, Greco ended up planning a 10,000-mile road trip with 11 different stops across the country he’s called home for more than 40 years.
There was only so much Greco and his daughter could fit into their Toyota Prius C, weighed down to the point that the tailpipe was nearly touching the ground. Plus, with no mobile refrigeration equipment, it would be challenging to run any sort of dough management program while on the road. For those reasons, the road trip got him out of his comfort zone and helped him grow as a pizza maker.
“I’ve become a lot more adaptable,” Greco said. “I’m trying new things that I know are gonna work, I’m just not sure how well it’s gonna work.”
Some of it just came down to planning, like texting the pizzeria owner ahead of time to establish which ingredients would be on hand, or what he should buy in advance. And once he arrived, Greco felt the need to ensure the pizza was on point in spite of the obvious restrictions.
“It’s a high pressure performance, right?” Greco said. “Like, I have a certain amount of time to do everything. And it has to work because I’m very, very hard on myself if I don’t like it. For me to be satisfied with what I’m doing, it has to be at a very high level.”
Greco wasn’t the only one who was put into a pressure-packed environment either. To that end, he said it was especially invigorating to see his daughter working alongside him in the kitchen, growing up before his eyes. “She did amazing,” Greco marveled. “I was really, really proud of her.”
Greco already has designs for the future. One of his dreams—one he hopes to partially fund via his ongoing pop-ups in New York City that have returned now that school is in session—is to start a pizza food truck that gives jobs to special needs students. Too often he sees his students leave school or graduate into a world that is cold and unforgiving. “And the plan would be that if they go to college and study business and are excellent employees,” Greco said, “then I could team up with them, with the goal to have their own food truck. That way, it could change that whole family’s life.”
In the nearer term, though, Greco wants to run the pop-up tour again next summer. He’s looking for pizzeria owners that would like to host him and Sofia. He said it would be an honor that he doesn’t take lightly—a challenge that’s a far cry from his days as a backpacker.
“It’s different now,” Greco said. “Because I have to make people happy through my pizza, right? So there’s that pressure that I did not have as a backpacker.”
