Chad Franzen 26:15
I saw that the pizza and Hot Box was recognized by Boston Magazine in the last couple of years as the best pizza. What’s what’s so great about it, and who came up with the specific recipe? I mean, I if somebody there a pizza expert that was able to create the best pizza in Boston, or how did you come up with it?
Mike Gurevich 26:33
Yeah, so that’s a great question. You know, it’s funny. I’m very grateful for Boston Magazine, best of Boston, for awarding us that in 2020, those graders actually big surprise, you know, social bar pizza, the style itself, it’s phenomenal. It’s great pizza, I was not a believer, in 2017, when we started going out and tasting bar pizza on the south shore, went to all the famous places at that time, there’s some new ones, but not there’s a couple that were standout, really good. There’s a couple that I was just not that impressed with. And I was concerned I was like, you know, is this something I’m gonna be able to get on and, and, you know, cuz we like the North Shore South Shore juxtaposition of the concepts. I was, like, you know, we’re gonna run with this. And at the time, we had a, we had a chef manager, who was from the south shore, and he had a lot experience eating that pizza. And, you know, we work together on trying some different recipes, trying to different kind of seeing how the best versions of that type of pizza came out what, when it when it was really good, what was really good about it, and what was was bad, what wasn’t good. And we realized that when the dough was had that specific type of pizza, it’s hard to, you know, see, if you see a picture of it’s very easy to understand, but without the picture, it’s hard. It’s cooked in like kind of a deep dish pan, usually. Even though the pizza is kind of definitely thin crust. It it has this like, I think the term for the term is is like least edges really, there’s another term for it in the culinary world, you know, Maillard reaction, but it’s, you get the crisp, so the toppings and and the cheese go all the way to the edge of the pan. And they create like a mallei reaction with the pan. And that creates this like it looks burnt but it’s not it has like this like super crispy taste to it and you know what the dough and you use a good dough and you don’t have a too thin, it’s chewy, but crispy. And that’s what we realized that the best bar pizzas had so we tried tested some recipes and kind of nailed nailed, nailed what we thought was a really good bar pizza. And you know, I think the end of the day like I’m very you know, it’s everything’s subjective when you’re talking about awards and such, but I’m very grateful for that. I mean, there’s so much great pizza in Boston. I think it’s probably one of the Boston’s best foods. I think, you know, Boston’s food scene is coming along. Has great pizza. You know, there’s so many so much great pizza in Boston. And like a lot of the artisanal styles this Neo Neapolitan, and these now we have listened to Detroit Detroit style and some of these traditional more like New York style pies and now we have these Neo New York style pies that are coming. There’s so many great places now that I think those places the dough matters a lot more because you’re, you know, you’re you’re you’re fermenting or you’re kind of doing all these creative dough processes and using, you know, kind of neapolitan style with wood fired ovens or if you’re using, you know, even an electric oven that burns really hot. The dough is the star of the show, whereas the bar pizza, it’s a little bit more of the composition Then like it’s really thin crossed, it’s more about the crispness of the undercarriage and the the kind of the least edges. Sometimes almost more than it is, but so many other artisanal styles. So I think that it was really it was really just kind of always going to composition. And also we have a, I guess the one standout like from like a topping perspective, like we do the traditional we do like a really cool pepperoni. We do some we do like a buffalo chicken, kind of like your, your kind of, I wouldn’t say like standard pizzas, but kind of in the more traditional American pizza toppings. What we do as different is we do a pickle pizza. And that is I never thought that I would like it. There’s a place in the South Shore and still in this town spots famous for their bar pizza. I had some friends from down there and ended up frequenting that place on the way to you know, when I was in college on the way to partying and Providence and that was a place where we stopped on the way and it’s kind of legendary to this day. They do a ton of business. It’s this massive kind of you know, bar that serves as pizza and you know, a lot of people go there. So that was kind of inspiration. They do a pickle pizza. Ours is a little different. We do our spicy pickle, we mix hots with chopped pickles, and it’s phenomenal. It’s it has this like, it’s spicy, but it has like that kind of like, like if you have a cheeseburger with pickles, that’s like the cheese melts with a pickle. That’s kind of to me, it’s very unique. I think that’s that’s what that’s one of the things that makes us really unique. And I’m really proud of that pizza.
Chad Franzen 31:38
Yeah, sounds great. Hey, what are some of your goals now for M&A Brands moving forward?
Mike Gurevich 31:46
Yeah, we’re we’re definitely going to we’re dedicated to the to the Boston Market, we’re definitely going to continue to expand. And Mike and Patty’s brand, you know, the Hot Box brand. Definitely looking forward to coming up with some great products in the bakery side. Some new concepts that are going to be coming out soon, new locations in the works, though, I will say that my biggest kind of project or one of my biggest things I’m working on now is going outside of the Boston Market. That’s been a goal of mine for a long time. And finally, finally making some headway on that. I think there’s so much opportunity in this country, I think Boston’s Boston’s Great, now the Northeast is great. California is great. But really, you know, I mentioned California, because originally that was always my west coast was always the target that hey, I really want to, you know, really want to do something. And in LA or San Diego or, you know, I’d spent I’ve lived in Oregon and the San Diego area. So we want to do something there. The truth is, in today’s world, doing business in Massachusetts, and doing business in California is and you know, states like New York, just really challenging. It’s really, really cost prohibitive. It’s there’s a high barrier to entry. The bureaucratic systems in place, make it really difficult, especially for mom and pops or kind of independent restaurant operators to do projects. It’s kind of, you know, of course, it’s, you know, anything’s possible, but just comparatively, it’s hard to conduct business in these states in these cities, which is unfortunate. It’s just a fact of how things are today, and really looking to different parts of the country where there’s just a better opportunity to be to be perfectly frank in in the restaurant in the restaurant and culinary, culinary business.
Chad Franzen 33:44
Okay, well, best wishes. Best of luck to you. I have one more question for you. But first, tell me how people can learn more about everything you have going on with M&A Brands Mike and Patty’s Hot Box Flourhouse Bakery.
Mike Gurevich 33:55
Sure. I mean, we have a website mabrands.co. And so it’s just it’s M&A Brands, but the websites mabrands.co Instagram is the best you can best place to kind of keep up to date with everything @mikeandpattys @eat.hotbox. And then @flourhouse.bakery, I believe it is and check us out follow us local things. We have a big collaboration with vital farms that we just we just announced yesterday we’re giving away free carnivals very fancy which is kind of, you know, legendary partnership. We’re very excited about that. But that’s just an example of some things we have going on and definitely check us out and stay tuned for. For more more amazing, exciting things. Coming soon.
Chad Franzen 34:54
Okay, awesome. Hey, I last question for you when you go to either Hot Box or Mike and Patty’s as a customer are what are your kind of your go to items of choice?
Mike Gurevich 35:03
Sure. So I’ll start with Mike and Patty’s Fancy is our is our longtime best seller. It’s two two vital farms eggs, bacon, diced dice red onion. This like 10 years kind of shuffled de house mayo, avocado and cheddar on multigrain. That’s like our number one bestsellers kind of like what made us kind of put us on the map. We have another sandwich called the breakfast grilled crack, which is obviously a better farmers egg with four different types of cheese pressed on sourdough. We make our own English muffins. We have a lot of good English muffins sandwiches, really the menu is from seven to seven attended breakfast sandwiches in each location you really can’t go wrong with any of them. If you’re kind of playing you know, you can just do a bacon egg, bacon egg and cheese on our our Flourhouse our house made English muffin. Or English muffins are phenomenal. They never touch an oven. Can’t go wrong with that at Hot Box, I think pickle pizza and a JR Jr beef three way I think you can’t go wrong with with any of that. Even just regular cheese pizzas is honestly phenomenal. And the beef the junior beef for the summer beef are great as well. You know, it’s definitely we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re just trying to do it really well. And I think those you can’t really go wrong. We have pretty small menus at all of our locations. I think we try to make it so that anything you order is gonna be it’s gonna hopefully tickle your fancy No pun intended.
Chad Franzen 36:33
Okay, I am I’m starving now. Hey, Mike, it’s been great to talk to you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Mike Gurevich 36:38
Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
Chad Franzen 36:41
So everybody.
Outro 36:42
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