How did Johnny Carson influence your frozen pizza business? >> Oh, you know about that, huh? Johnny was one of our regular. Every Friday night he used to come to Spago. One time he asked me he wants to take some pizzas home. A week later he says, “Make me 10 pizzas to go.” Finally, I asked him, one day I asked him, I said, “Johnny, what do you do with 10 pizzas?” He said, “I put them in the freezer.” I looked at him, “You put my damn pizzas in the freezer? I’m not giving you pizzas anymore. You know that’s sacriles.” And he said, “No, I put them in the freezer and when uh Don Rickles or Bob Newhart or any of my friends come over, we play cart late in the morning, we get hungry.” And then I tell my houseman, I said, “Just put the pizza in the oven for 10 minutes and uh we all have pizzas and a little vodka or whatever they cooked some, took them home, put them in the freezer for a few days, and then cooked it. I said, you know, it’s a little dry.” Then I cooked it halfway and put it in the freezer and then I cooked it again and I said, you know, it tastes really good. So then I said, “Okay, let’s try frozen pizzas.” So we started in a in a few supermarkets and made frozen pizzas for them and we became successful. So then we expanded. My dad didn’t know anything about food. I we didn’t have any money to go eat out. The Olive Garden was the fanciest place that we went for our birthdays. I took an interest in food and I’d be watching Top Chef and I’d see you judging on Top Chef as a wee little lad and my dad would go, “Hey, we can buy that guy’s pizza in the supermarket.” And so there I am, you know, the guy from Top Chef on my screen at home. I’m able to put it in the oven. And those experiences genuinely meant a lot to
