Joe Lajoie: River City Wood Fire Pizza

Eat It, Virginia!

Is it possible that the best pizza in Richmond is served out of a truck? Eat It, Virginia podcast co-host and Virginia food critic Robey Martin said yes, it's 100 percent possible.

The pizza Joe Lajoie creates in a truck for River City Wood Fire Pizza consistently ranks among the best slices in town.

But don't ask Joe if he thinks his pizza is the best in Richmond.

"Often people say, 'Do you want to be the best pizza in Richmond?' I go, 'Never,' River City Wood River Pizza boss Joe Lajoie said. "When they ask why not, I say I want to be one of the best pizzas in Richmond because I love Richmond. I've lived here all my life. It's collective. I want it to be a big borough or a big neighborhood, right? And you can't have that if you start off with the chest pounding."

For the last 10 years, the construction worker turned sheriff's deputy turned pizza chef has been baking pizza pies out of his food truck at weddings, concerts, and other events around Virginia.

He said pizza is much more than toppings, sauce, and crust.

"Pizza is tied to memories," he said."You remember being a kid and sitting at the bar and getting a slice. People have this belief of what good pizza is and I personally think that they'll eat something and go that's not as good as this one, and a lot of that is because the memories are not tied to it."

On this episode of Eat It, Virginia, Lajoie shared his success story and the scary moments that happened during COVID when he turned online ordering on.

"COVID was the dragon, we had to learn how to drive," he said. "We turn [online ordering] on and everybody has a cash register [smartphone] in their hand. And within nine minutes we hit $1,800 in orders. I'm like, shut it off! They're big family orders, nobody's getting where they go, and everybody's ordering like crazy. I'm like, holy crap, this is nuts."

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