The Pizza Series Soft Opening This Week in Scotts Valley

May 30, 2023 – Matt Driscoll’s work history reads more like a directory of Santa Cruz County pizzerias. 

The owner—with fiancée/business partner Maddy Quesada—of Scott’s Valley’s soon-to-open restaurant, The Pizza Series, started both his culinary and pizzaiolo career at the Aptos Domino’s in 1997. From there, he was variously employed at Straw Hat, Pizza My Heart, pizza stations at Whole Foods markets, and Bantam. 

“From the start, I was setting myself up for a career in pizza, even if I didn’t realize it,” says Driscoll. “I’ve always loved to make pizza because you have this blank canvas. You get to decide how to make it up and create edible art.” 

Driscoll’s path to self-employment began in 2014. For years, he’d been taking photos of the pizzas he made at work as a form of recipe documentation, and he started posting them on his Instagram account—a progression he and Quesada referred to as, “Pizza Series No. 1 Thru No. 4.” Driscoll soon created a new account called The Pizza Series and “things evolved from there,” he says.

In 2019, the couple registered The Pizza Series as an LLC company with the goal of launching a food truck. In preparation, Driscoll was accepted into Google’s two-year incubator program for food truck entrepreneurs, but the pandemic led to its cancellation before he could complete the course.

In early 2021, Driscoll and Quesada decided the time was right to move forward with their food truck plan, but then needed a commercial kitchen for their dough and food prep. They eventually found a space at Enterprise Technology Center in Scotts Valley, which also houses local food start-ups like Jayne Dough and Wildstag Provisions. By that spring, the couple had pivoted to running pop-up out of the ETC kitchen, which continued through 2022.

“We loved the set-up at the kitchen because it was easier to manage than a mobile operation and gave us more opportunities for bigger events,” says Driscoll. “We generated a huge fan base, so when it came to opening the actual restaurant, we wanted to stay in Scotts Valley.”

The Pizza Series new location is in the former Tony & Alba’s Pizza space in the King’s Village Shopping Center. The 4,000-square foot restaurant was gutted and “made more contemporary and minimalist,” says Driscoll. 

The venue includes a takeout and slices-to-go counter, an open kitchen, a Montague double-deck pizza oven, a 70-seat downstairs dining room, an upstairs banquet room, and a heated patio, while the menu expands on the pop-up repertoire of square, Detroit-style pies and what Driscoll refers to as, “round [New York Style] pizzas, all of which are made with his signature dough.

After decades spent making other people’s pies, for his own business Driscoll felt it was time to focus on two specific styles with personal meaning. “I’m originally from Detroit, and my father is from New York City, so that’s what we offer,” he says. “The Detroit-style pizzas are saucier, with a lighter, airy crust similar to focaccia, for which we use bread flour. The round pizzas have a thin crust with a bit more density and slight chew that necessitates a stronger protein profile, so we use a higher gluten flour. 

All of the pizza dough is fermented for three days for maximum flavor development. Driscoll hand tosses every round pie, a practice also done to stretch the dough in a circular shape, although the attendant acrobatics have also won him awards at pizza tossing competitions. 

“I learned to slap and stretch dough over my fist at Domino’s and it was at Pizza My Heart in 2005 that I got into hand tossing,” says Driscoll. “Ultimately, I’ve taken little elements of what I’ve learned from all of the places I’ve worked and incorporated them into my own pizzas.”

Relying upon “simple ingredients” including canned San Marzano tomatoes (the gold standard for authentic Neapolitan pizzas and used by most pizzaiolos domestically, as well) for sauce, Driscoll’s signature offerings include round pies The Hidden Forest (fresh spinach, mushrooms, caramelized onions, whipped ricotta, roasted garlic, red sauce) and BBQ Kauaiian (BBQ sauce, grilled pineapple, bacon, Black Forest ham, jalapenos) and Detroit pies like The Pep & More (pepperoni, spicy Italian sausage, caramelized onions, whipped ricotta, red sauce, basil) and The Maple Special (grilled chicken, mozzarella, spicy Italian sausage, applewood smoked bacon, serrano chiles) as well as vegan pies. Sides include the craveable Cholula Ranch and spicy Calabrian Honey, which is also sold at the restaurant.

OVERCOMING SETBACKS

While the restaurant build-out was still being completed, Quesada found herself facing a life-and-death situation after she was hospitalized in 2021. “She was becoming jaundiced, and that’s how we learned she had an auto recessive genetic disorder that was attacking and destroying her liver,” says Driscoll.  

It soon became apparent that Quesada required a liver transplant to survive, and her fiancée immediately volunteered to be a live donor. Before could happen, however, a different liver became available and in August of 2022, Quesada underwent an emergency organ transplant. Today, she is fully recovered and oversees the restaurant’s daily operations and the Detroit-style pizza program. 

While Quesada handles the square pies, Driscoll and his sous chef, Jose Reyes, can be seen tossing dough in the open kitchen. Having a dedicated restaurant has also allowed Driscoll to expand his offerings to include wings, salads, pastas and desserts and offer wine and beer on tap including local beers from Discretion Brewing, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery and Steel Bonnet. “My dream is to also install a wood-fired oven on the patio so we can do Neapolitan-style pizzas,” he says.

Driscoll will also be offering hands-on pizza making classes and kid’s workshops, a carryover from programming he once offered at Whole Foods. “We very much wanted a family friendly place, where people can watch us tossing dough,” he says.

While the standards will remain on the menu, Driscoll says he’ll be working with local farms and offering seasonal toppings like summer corn and pancetta pizza, Margherita with local heirloom tomatoes and breakfast pizzas and pastas with eggs from Aptos’s Glaum Egg Ranch.  

It’s a lot of work, taking on such a big space for our first location, but our vision is coming together,” says Driscoll. “We can’t wait to open and get going.”

thepizzaseries.com