The Pizza Gypsy, LLC, Santa Cruz, CA
About The Pizza Gypsy
Jasmine Faber - Founder
I love pizza! And I love to share my passion for great pizza with others. In 2010 I founded The Pizza Gypsy for that reason – to serve great pizza and a share a great experience with my customers throughout California.
Our company name has an intentional double message. First, like a Gypsy’s Wagon, our pizza facility is self contained and mobile. We bring our custom-commissioned portable wood burning oven on site, to our customer’s location, making piping hot world-class artisan pizzas. Second, I’m a gypsy. I’m a native of Santa Cruz, California but I’ve lived throughout the United States and I’ve traveled across the planet. In 2008 I returned to my Santa Cruz birth place hoping to cool my gypsy-jets and to settle down (at least a little).
My fervor for amazing pizza began as a child in our family kitchens. Our kitchen was always the center of our community; and our community constantly grew each time my family relocated - every 3 years! We collected many zany friends in those many kitchens and, as the years passed, each holiday celebration grew in size and diversity as our former neighbors traveled cross-country to celebrate with us and our new neighbors. My love for creating wood fired pizza initially began as a young girl in the early 90’s, after my grandparents installed an outdoor imported Italian wood fired oven (their backyard and kitchen remodel was necessitated by damage from the horrific 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake). Not only did I cherish the remarkable pizza but - just like our family kitchen - I loved how everyone came together for the entire food experience.
During my early teenage years I apprenticed under Chef David Berkowitz of Park City, Utah. (Not “The Son of Sam” David Berkowitz, but “Park City’s David” does produce “killer food!”) David taught me the skills of artisan food preparation in his kitchen at Campagne Specialty Foods. When I returned to Utah, during my last “gypsy tour” in my late teens, I again apprenticed under David. This time he taught me to overcome the challenges of running a ca
