The next big food trend, the one that I predict will inherit the frozen yogurt craze and the luxe lonchera boom, is going to be the Chipotle-inspired, custom-made pizza shop.
In OC, we saw it first with Pie-ology, which debuted in Fullerton and plans to expand to Irvine Spectrum and beyond. There is 800 Degrees in LA, which got a featured article by J. Gold in the Los Angeles Times last week. And now there's going to be Blaze Fast Fire'd Pizza planned for University Center across from UC Irvine.
]
It describes itself this way:
“The pioneer of a new, fast casual restaurant serving “foodie” quality, custom-built pizzas at very fast speeds, all at very affordable prices.”
Judging by the trademark filing made in January, the person behind the restaurant is Elise Wetzel, wife of the founder of the Wetzel Pretzel chain and who herself is the founder and president of the iSold It chain of eBay drop- off stores.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.