Old Ellicott City is getting ready to welcome a new restaurant to Tiber Alley off Main Street, and the concept is hot garbage. Hot Garbage Pizza, that is.
Geoff Gill previewed two of the made-from-scratch pizzas at Saturday morning’s Old Ellicott City’s Farmers Market. Gill was busy from start to finish making the pizzas inspired by his grandmother, who used to have regular pizza nights. In addition to standard pizzas, one of the pizzas would have all the leftovers from the meals from the week, and that was called the “garbage” pizza.
“It was always the best one,” Gill told Baltimore Fishbowl in a phone call. “So, we’ve had an idea for doing something that honored my grandmother for a very long time, and for a while it was just the pipe dream that my wife and I talked about, of whether it’s a food truck or a restaurant or something. I’m from an Italian family, so I do all the cooking in our household.”
Gill’s grandmother taught his mother how to cook, and his mother taught him. His grandmother died a few years ago, and he describes her as courageous, sharp, funny with a dry sense of humor, and says she was his drinking buddy. He recalled a trip to Italy with his mother and grandparents where everywhere they went, people left limoncello out on the table.
“It was just my grandmother and I knocking all the shots back every single time,” Gill said. “So yeah, she was my drinking buddy.”
With a father in the military, Gill lived in Germany for 8 years as a child and vacationed in France and Italy. Learning of relatives in Italy, they connected with cousins and went to farm restaurants. Years later, when Gill and his wife returned on their honeymoon, he learned that the American concept of “farm-to-table” restaurants was simply how restaurants were in Italy and other parts of the world. Meeting up with a cousin in Rome he described “farm-to-table” restaurants as a novelty in the United States and she responded, “That’s just the way you’re supposed to eat!”
When he was single, he worked in the restaurant industry but eventually moved into the corporate tech world. Dissatisfied with his job in the corporate world, Gill decided to get back to what he loves doing, which is cooking.
“I love feeding my family. I love working with the community,” Gill said. “I love nurturing young talent, so I’m really excited to bring in young kids, [give them] their first job, and actually teach them a skill. …[A]s they go off into their corporate worlds and their other jobs, they’ll have this kind of skill in their back pocket, just this little confidence builder. … ‘Hey, you know, I worked at this place with this guy, and I actually know how to do these really difficult things with care and get really good results.’ And they can take that confidence anywhere they go.”
At Saturday’s farmers market, Gill used mushrooms from Manchester Mushroom Farm and Italian sausage from North Acres Farm for the white pizza. For the breakfast pizza he used the eggs from Manchester Mushroom Farm and bacon ends from North Acres Farm. Building community is very important to him, as is knowing where his ingredients are coming from. He is prioritizing working with local farms and called Saturday’s experience “like a dream” to have two pizzas on the menu that were multi-collaborative creations with two farms that were also vendors at that same market.
“We’re fully self-funded,” Gill said. “I don’t have partners. I don’t have investors. I’m not part of a restaurant group. I’m literally just a dad with a family who has been feeding my kids for years.”
Kristin Vergis, director of the OEC Farmers Market, was thrilled to introduce Hot Garbage Pizza to the Old Ellicott City community on Saturday.
“Having Hot Garbage Pizza pop up at the farmers market last Saturday was a joy, and a wonderful collaboration!” Vergis told Baltimore Fishbowl. “They’re bringing local love to every bite, sourcing ingredients from OEC Farmers Market farmers like mushrooms and eggs from Manchester Mushrooms and bacon ends from North Acres Farm for their breakfast pizza. That’s what a local food community is all about! We can’t wait to have them right here on Main Street in Tiber Park.”
Initially, the menu will be a simple choice of five pizzas and beverages. Hot Garbage Pizza has a full liquor license and a carry license, so customers and neighbors can order pizzas to go and get a six-pack or bottle of wine to take with them if they like. Gill is targeting early September for opening.
About Gill’s grandmother, he recalled hearing stories about her from others, because she never talked about herself.
“She was just a lovely woman,” Gill said. “My mom tells stories about her working, in like the 50s and 60s, and standing up for women in her office and going to protest for civil liberties and things like that. So yeah, she never bragged about it. Like, you didn’t hear about any of this from her. …By the time I had a relationship with her, she was older and out of the workforce and just liked to sit around and drink whiskey and coffee and make pizza.”
Hot Garbage Pizza is his way fulfilling a longtime dream while honoring her legacy.
It is located at 8069 Tiber Alley, Ellicott City, Md.
