WILMINGTON — WilmyWoodie, Wilmington’s new food truck, is offering up a taste of real wood-fired pizzas — and it’s starting off with a bang.
WilmyWoodie officially opened for business Wednesday at Mad Mole Brewing and, according to owners Erin and Kevin Langston, opening night was a success, with more than 90 pizzas served during the event.
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One of Kevin’s first jobs was in a pizza restaurant and having a restaurant of his own has been a longtime goal of his.
“We have been talking about it for the last few years and I have always said I wanted to have my own restaurant. Then we asked, ‘How can we scale it down, make it not so crazy?’ We work from home, my wife has a website management company, so we have been working from home the last few years and like having our own schedule … so that’s what we went for,” Kevin Langston said.
Food trucks are not a new concept, but WilmyWoodie has taken a unique approach to the traditional “meals on wheels” concept in the form of a wood-burning oven hanging off the back of the truck.
“We got in touch with a builder and came up with a plan, decided we wanted to make a food truck … we told him (the truck’s builder) that we wanted to have wood-fired pizza truck, and he said ‘you know what we should do, we should put it sticking out the back of the truck,'” Kevin Langston said.
“I googled it and I couldn’t find any pictures of any truck with a wood fire oven sticking out of the back … He assured me that they would make it work, and it wouldn’t fall off so we went for it,” he concluded.
The pizza oven itself is a unique piece of equipment, made in Napa California using volcanic rock on the inside.
“We went to Napa earlier this year and met with the company that made the oven and got to cook with a couple of chefs that they work with out there. It was just really cool to see the process of how they make the oven, it traveled across the country to get here,” Erin Langston said.
The oven can reach temperatures of 1000-degrees and cook pizzas in about one minute, but, even at such extreme temperatures, the inside of the truck stays cool thanks to some heavy-duty insulation.
In order to prepare for their food truck launch, the Langston’s bought a second pizza over for their backyard, and — much to the delight of their neighbors — have been fine-tuning their craft.
“When we went to Napa we realized there is a true skill and art to making the fire, getting the oven right, and then cooking the pizza so we invested in another oven for the house so we had time to prepare. The neighbors have been very happy, we told them ‘come test pizzas,'” Langston said.
Customers can choose from a variety of different pizzas, from classics like the cheese pizza “The River,” named for the Langston’s youngest son, or a bolder three cheese named for their older son, “The Brody.”
WilmyWoodie can be found online, or look for a weekly schedule on Port City Daily’s Food Truck Tracker every Monday.
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