Outside Pizza Serves Pickle Pies and More From a Retro Camper

"Ashley [Knotek] and I were both working for different breweries, and we were doing digital marketing for our respective breweries," recalls Ryan Grillaert. "We were at a conference sort of situation, and we met at the Facebook headquarters, and we hit it off and bonded over snowboarding — and beer, obviously."

The two started to hang out more frequently outside of work, too, traveling and hiking together. At one point, Knotek was in Anchorage, and "I was eating a slice of kind of shitty frozen pizza, but it looked really nice," she says. "I was holding it up by the mountains, and it just blended in in a really fun way, like a pizza mountain peak." She shared a photo of the scene online, dubbing it "outside pizza" and kicking off a trend for the two.

"We would go on hikes with pizza," Grillaert says. "Wherever there was a pizza shop that was nearby, we would just buy a pizza and go on a hike with it, and we were taking photos of this pizza and thought it was so funny."

The Instagram account filled with photos of pizza in the wild took off. "We actually got approached to do a calendar," Grillaert recalls. "There was a publishing company that was like, 'We love this. Let's do it now.' So we did it, and we were like, cool, we're making some money, let's see if this goes anywhere."

By 2019, both Grillaert and Knotek had settled in Colorado, where they continued to discuss the idea of making their hobby into a business. "We would go on these hikes, and people would pass by us and go, 'Oh, my God, what I would give for a slice of pizza right now!' And we were like, how much?" Grillaert says. "We thought, 'We could do this. We could make our own pizza and bring it to the trailhead and give out slices of pizza to people.'"

It was March 2020 when they began to raise funding with the goal of turning a retro camper into a pizza business. Then the pandemic hit, forcing them to pump the brakes for a bit. But as part of the COVID-related restrictions on reopening, breweries were required to serve food.

That fact prompted Grillaert and Knotek to begin working on the business once again, and they officially launched Outside Pizza in August 2021.

When it comes to the pies themselves, Knotek brought dough knowledge to the team. "My first job was at a pizza spot in Seattle called Zeeks," she says. "I started working there when I was sixteen, and I loved it so much." She eventually moved to its commissary kitchen, where she was "making dough for all of their locations. Literally a ton of dough every day."

Because of that experience, "I love making bread. Anything gluten-forward, I'm very excited about," Knotek adds. "Our dough recipe is different because it's naturally leavened. We use a sourdough starter that I think is coming up on four years old. We do a 48-hour bulk cold fermentation. The yeast is wild and crazy — very easy to break down and really easy on your tummy. Very light, fluffy dough that's got a nice little crunch on the outside."

While the dough recipe is based on a traditional Neapolitan-style pie, Outside Pizza sometimes uses non-conventional toppings. For example, last year, it offered a cheeseburger pizza, which led to the creation of its pickle pizza, which has a roasted garlic and cream sauce base with mozzarella, provolone and housemade pickles with dill on top. "I was thinking that I would just do it one time and then it'd be like, whatever. But we did it and people lined up, twenty to thirty people deep, for this pickle pie," Knotek says. "Now we do it maybe twice a month."

If you're not lucky enough to catch the camper on pickle pizza day, Grillaert suggests trying one of his favorites, the Lloyd, named after the pair's dog. "Lloyd is a stocky brown guy that kind of looks like a sausage, so we did a pizza with Italian sausage and pickled cherry peppers," he says.

Outside Pizza also serves up staples like pepperoni and a classic margherita alongside its rotating specials, which include a dessert-style vanilla custard pie.

On June 30, it will celebrate its two-year anniversary with a party at Cohesion Brewing (3851 Steele Street). "Our last one was a rager," Knotek recalls. "For this one, we're going to be doing a beer with Cohesion. We're having a tattoo artist from Live Easy Tattoo. They're doing pizza flash tats. And all the proceeds are being donated to a couple of different charities."

To find the camper throughout the rest of the summer, check out Outside Pizza's schedule on its website or follow its Instagram account.