Head out on the highway, looking for adventure …

… and whatever topping comes our way

By: Diane Landis Hackett
   Pizza in Princeton can be delivered or picked up, eaten in or taken out but it has yet to roam — until now.
   Nomad Pizza has turned the American tradition of grabbing a slice into a high-end party on wheels complete with a one ton pizza oven on an old-time truck that serves artisan pizza pies, salads made with locally grown greens, Thomas Sweet desserts and Small World Coffee drinks. And the fun part is, Nomad will cook and serve the meal right outside your front door for you and your friends.
   "A pizza party is very social. Everyone is happy when they are getting served pizza and salad," says Tom Grim, the co-owner of Nomad Pizza, which made its debut in June.
   Mr. Grim, who has been feeding customers homemade ice cream and chocolates in his Thomas Sweet shops for 27 years, has just about perfected making people happy with sugar, so he is now moving onto the more savory ingredients of the main course.
   With his partner Stalin Bedon, a former Thomas Sweet employee, Mr. Grim has turned a passion into a business, just like he did almost thirty years ago at the University of Buffalo. There, he and his roommate, Tom Block, made fudge in their dorm rooms and sold it at county fairs and elsewhere, eventually leading them to open Thomas Sweet Chocolates in Palmer Square in Princeton and then Thomas Sweet Ice Cream on Nassau Street.
   Mr. Grim’s latest venture began with an interest in bread baking and turned into an obsession with making the perfect pizza crust. Mr. Grim tested his product by throwing pizza parties at his home for years until he was satisfied that he had mastered the crust — "thin and a bit burnt" — and the ingredients — "less is more" — he claims.
   The end result is a 12-inch-round pizza made with dough that Mr. Grim kneads a day ahead and chills overnight. The toppings are fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese which he either buys locally or grows himself. He does add toppings such as anchovies, peppers and other ingredients depending on what the party-goers are craving.
   Tom Weaver, one of Nomad Pizza’s first customers, who has his own refined palette as the executive chef of Tre Piani Restaurant in Forrestal Village, said the taste of Mr. Grim’s pizza was a "revelation."
   Mr. Weaver says when the Nomad truck pulled into a party he was attending he thought to himself that it was a "kinda cool idea," and then returned to the conversation he was having. But things changed when he actually put the pizza in his mouth.
   "When I tasted the pizza I was quite impressed and wanted to go up and meet the person who made it," says Mr. Weaver who added that the quality was as good as what he had tasted in Italy. Mr. Weaver also admitted that pizza was his "desert island food" the one dish he would want to have when stranded on a desert island, so this was high praise.
   The move from making pizza at home to a traveling pizza party business came a bit unexpectedly to Mr. Grim. He says that after baking lots of pizza he realized he needed an oven that could get his dough much hotter —— say eight hundred degrees or more. He searched on the Internet, found an oven in California, and bought all 150 pounds of it. Then, he hired a mason to help them put it together. When he found a chip in one piece he called the company, and to his surprise, they sent him a whole new oven, not wanting the old one back.
   He says he remembers thinking out loud to his partner at that juncture that it might be fun to put one of the ovens on the back of an old truck. Three days later, much to Mr. Grim’s surprise, Mr. Bedon had purchased an antique 1949 REO Speed Wagon truck from a farm in Ontario, Canada. An idea floated innocently had become a new business just that fast.
   After months of working daily with a team of metal workers to fit the one ton oven onto the Speed Wagon, Nomad Pizza was ready to roll. Their original concept was as a catering service for parties, weddings and other special events, only in the warmer months of course – with a price of $30 a person.
   But, they have attended a number of public events such as the Tri-State National Lacrosse Tournament at Mercer County Park recently, to get their name out, where they made and sold 200 pizzas, selling out completely at $12 a pie.
   "It was a huge learning curve for us, we need to move faster, but it was a lot of fun," says Mr. Grim of the experience.
   Learning curves are something Mr. Grim has mastered a number of times in his business career. First, with candy, then ice cream at Thomas Sweet where they learned to make the product after the shop was open.
   Princeton University, Thomas Sweet’s long-time landlord, when they invited them to open the shop wanted it to be open when the students arrived on campus in the fall, according to Mr. Grim. It was impossible to make the ice cream until the equipment was in place, which took some time, he says.
   When the shop first opened, the ice cream was really not spectacular at all, Mr. Grim confesses, but after a month or two of trial and error his customers were praising the taste and coming back for more.
   Next, came bread and now pizza. All that hands-on learning has spawned a number of small business philosophies that seem to underlie his continued success.
   "I guess for a lot of people, business is just about making money. But you really need to put your heart into a business and you have to put profits secondary," he says of his ability to let his passions define his businesses.
   Other driving forces for Nomad include buying local produce and ingredients whenever possible, environmental stewardship (he uses all bio-plastic cutlery and plates, which he then composts), and recognizing the benefits of remaining a small, unique business.
   Mr. Grim says he gets one call a week to franchise Thomas Sweet Ice Cream. Early on, they did franchise two of their shops. There is one in New Brunswick and one in Washington, D.C., but they stopped at two because the franchises took them away from their store, where Mr. Grim still manages four shifts a week.
   Customers are already suggesting that they grow the pizza business and buy a fleet of old trucks. "If you have ten you are in another business—-you are managing ten trucks," he says.
   And, in this regard, his philosophy is as simple as his ingredients, "bigger is not better, better is better," he says. Then he adds one more saying to his business acumen, "when it comes to business, you should innovate not imitate."
   Nomad Pizza’s Web site is www.nomadpizzaco.com. Because their old truck can’t go any faster than around 45 miles per hour, Nomad will only roam within 30 miles of Mr. Grim’s hometown in Hopewell. If you are interested in bringing Nomad to your door you should call (609) 651-1974 or email [email protected].