More

    #10Life: Speakeasy-style pizza service serves up weekly pies in Lander

    #10life is County 10 series to share and celebrate everything that’s great about local life in Fremont County.

    (Lander, WY) – An anonymous group of Lander residents shares “pizza love” with the community once a week, and you need a password and directions to pick it up.

    The Lander Pizza Collective weekly pies feature long-fermented sourdough crusts topped with as many fresh, local ingredients as they can get their hands on and baked in a wood-fired oven.

    Pizza ordering opens online around noon on Mondays for Friday pick-ups and they have been selling out in 15-20 minutes.

    “Pizza is a universal love language!” they wrote to County 10 in an email. “Perhaps more than any other food, pizza has become globally beloved with countless regional and cultural variations. It’s also an excellent canvas to showcase our local foods, all while remaining Food Freedom Act compliant.”

    In addition to sourcing local goods, including the firewood, on the first Friday of every month, they donate proceeds to one of the local food nonprofits.

    Below is a Q & A with the anonymous source(s) all done via email:

    County 10: What types of pizza do you offer?
    Lander Pizza Collective:
    “We are excited to support local farmers, gardeners, and producers, so we use as many locally-sourced ingredients as we can. Pizza with tomato sauce, cheese, and fresh basil is always on the menu – but the rest of the menu rotates depending on what’s available at area Farmers’ Markets, in Lander gardens, from the wild Wind River mountains, or from other local producers.”

    C10: When can you get it?
    LPC:
    “When you place an order, you’ll choose a pickup time. A confirmation email will come your way with instructions for finding the pickup location and the password for the person at the gate.”

    C10: When did you start this?
    LPC:
    “We started dedicating more energy to pizza during the COVID pandemic as a way to spread love within our “COVID bubble,” built an outdoor oven and started experimenting with hosting casual events. We got great feedback on our pizza, and this summer we realized that the greater Lander community might need a little pizza love too. We decided to experiment with selling pizzas on Friday nights, and the response from the community has been exciting and overwhelming.”

    C10: Why did you start this? 
    LPC:
    “Making pizza is fun, but it’s also a way to engage with and support our Lander community. We buy or barter ingredients from local farmers, foragers, and producers but also from regular Landerites with backyard gardens who have a surplus of this or that. Our firewood comes from local folks too! Lander people have been so generous and supportive. We’ve created quite the pizza posse!”

    C10: Why anonymous?
    LPC:
    “We like to think of ourselves like Batman…but…you know…pizza. It’s fun to sneak around, leaving a pizza on someone’s doorstep or making an anonymous donation to a local nonprofit, or buying ingredients from an unsuspecting vendor at the Farmers’ Market, and then promoting them by featuring them on our menu!”

    C10: What are your plans for the future?
    LPC:
    “Right now, demand for pizza outstrips supply every week. We’re talking about some ways to expand the LPC while also doing more cool things to promote our local foodways here in Lander. We’d love to do two pizza nights per week, but since we’re a rotating cast of regular local folks with day jobs, we’re inherently limited by our schedules. Additionally, we’re currently a mostly-outdoor operation, which means at some point we may need to put Pizza Fridays on hold until warmer temperatures return to the Lander Valley. We’re dreaming of finding a place to build an indoor oven! 

    “Even if we have to put pizza on hold for a bit, we’re hoping to offer some other holiday goodies during the cold winter months. Keep an eye on our website or follow us on Instagram @landerpizzaco to stay updated. And – if you’re a local grower, gatherer, or producer who has something that would be awesome on pizza, please get in touch with us via email! Now that the Farmers’ Market is on winter break and gardens are sleeping, we’re looking for new avenues to stay connected with Lander foods.”

    You can follow the Lander Pizza Collective on Instagram and at landerpizza.co.

    Related Posts

    Have a news tip or an awesome photo to share?