For the love of pizza: A Q&A with Randy Hobson of Pangea Kitchen in Evansville
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In August, a Washington Post article instructed readers how to find the best pizza in their state according to style. In Indiana, Evansville-based Pangea Kitchen earned the No. 1 spot for Neapolitan pizza and the No. 2 spot for Detroit pizza.
The culinary honors shocked restaurant owner Randy Hobson. The Vincennes native, who graduated from the University of Evansville, worked at Berry Global for 25 years before founding Pangea Kitchen in 2016. He also owns 2nd Language Ramen and Pangea Pizzeria in Evansville.
Hobson spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the east side restaurant’s recognition, his next business venture and a love for pizza.
How did you feel about Pangea Kitchen’s rankings in The Washington Post article?
To be honest, it was goosebumps and then some tears. That was my initial reaction because it was a wonderful surprise; it caught me off guard. Ironically, I had seen that publication come out, and I didn’t even bother to look at it because it’s always somebody out of Indianapolis. Then I got a call from our marketing person, and she’s like, “Guess what?”
I’m so proud of our team and our people. It’s just a nice recognition. And then to get the Detroit style recognition as well was great. I’m most proud of the fact that those pizzas didn’t exist in Evansville years ago when we started this journey. We brought something new. We gained acceptance and delivered a product.
What’s the difference between Neapolitan and Detroit pizzas?
Neapolitan is the foundation of pizza. Pizza began in Naples, Italy, years ago, and it was peasant food. It was street food. People fried dough in woks, which evolved to, “Hey, let’s put some wonderful San Marzano tomatoes from Mount Vesuvius on that,” and the Margherita pizza was born. The Italians built a pizza for the Queen, and they put mozzarella and fresh basil on it.
Neapolitan pizza is cooked in a wood-fired oven. Our oven was hand-built in Naples, Italy, by a family that’s built ovens since 1906. It cooks a pizza in about 80 to 90 seconds at super high heat, which allows you to get a great char.
Detroit style is like a distant cousin. I went to Detroit and tried it, and honestly, I did not love it. The toppings were too heavy for me. The tomato was just too much. But I loved the fundamentals of it.
The things that really define Detroit style … you cook it in a blue steel pan, and you cover the bottom with traditional olive oil, which has a higher smoke point. Then, you press the dough into the pan and you let it rise, relax and you press it again. Then, the cheese goes on top of the dough, which creates a lot of caramelization as it bakes. The toppings go on, you bake the pie and then you sauce it after the bake.
What makes your pizzas special?
I spend a lot of time researching, understanding ingredients, doing training with experts and bringing them to our restaurant to help train our people. And then investing in the right equipment and ingredients … being willing to work with fresh mozzarella and import tomatoes from Italy.
How did Pangea Kitchen get started in Evansville?
I ate my first Neapolitan pizza at Pizzeria Bianco—which was started by a guy named Chris Bianco, one of the best in the industry—in 1991. At that moment, I knew I wanted to bring that style of pizza to Evansville eventually. I always knew I wanted to open restaurants, but could I ever get the courage to do it? And finally, after 25 years at Berry Global, I said, “I’m ready.”
My kids were somewhat grown up, and their college was taken care of. I’m like, “All right, if I screw this up, they’re not going to starve to death.” That was the impetus to say, “Let’s do it.” I just wanted to give back something to Evansville. Evansville was wonderful to our family. Berry was wonderful to our family.
I wanted to create a better food culture in Evansville. If you wrapped it up in one sentence, that was what I wanted to do.
Tell me about your downtown restaurants: Pangea Pizzeria and 2nd Language Ramen.
The first thing we opened downtown was the French patisserie. We ran that for about a year, and we were doing the build-out for the ramen. These restaurants are next door to each other in an old Nabisco factory built in 1894. We have a shared kitchen between the two restaurants. When we opened the ramen restaurant, we closed the patisserie.
Last July, we opened the pizzeria in the patisserie location. The idea was that it was going to be more carry-out, more like a grab-and-go kind of thing. It’s more like a traditional big-city pizzeria. You come in, grab a slice or grab a pie. You can get delivery, but Neapolitan—the wood-fired pizza—doesn’t deliver that well. It cooks so fast and gets cool really fast.
How do you juggle all three restaurants?
I’ve got a great team. I have general managers who run each location. They know I’m there to help them, but I am not there day to day. I like to help guide. I like to bring new things. My passion is the development and the creative side and finding new things and working with them to deliver them. I’ve been really blessed with great employees who have stuck around. That’s made a huge difference.
We’re always working on how to do a better job recruiting people who have the same passion as us, who want to learn and understand the research behind food, the fact that you don’t open a bag or a pouch or a can for everything you make. You create things, and that’s always a challenge. But I let my team do their thing, and they appreciate that, too.
I like helping other people, and I like seeing them grow. That’s what makes me happy.
Any plans for more restaurants?
We’re buying a building in Newburgh, and that’ll be a totally different vernacular of food. Everybody’s like, “Are you going to do pizza?” No, we’re not going to do pizza. There are other things besides pizza. It will be a cuisine that we do not serve today.