In a town where people love a piece of pizza pie, Yellowknife’s newest pizza shop is offering up one of its own unique slices of goodness to hungry customers.
Papa Pete’s Pizza, located at the back door of the former KFC building on 49th Street, next to Harley’s, is ready to serve up a taste of delicious, say the shop’s owners and chefs.
“We wanted to bring something homemade and chef-inspired to Yellowknife,” Jen Vornbrock, also co-owner of the Monkey Tree Pub, said.
“And we will also be running our catering business out of this location,” she said of the catering they did through Stake restaurant before it closed.
Because of the popularity that the Stake business achieved, Vornbrock said they will keep the Stake restaurant catering name.
“People recognize it and know the quality and food service that is going to come with that name. Two different brands, one small little kitchen,” she said.
And the newly designed kitchen now fits perfectly in the space provided, Steven Dinham also a co-owner, said.
“It had all the framework we required. We have all brand-new equipment,” Dinham said.
“We are starting the way we want to, we aren’t stepping into someone else’s shoes.”
Working from the back door of the building, Vornbrock said they are working with DoorDash to make the pick up and delivery of food as seamless as possible.
“We have developed a plan so that customers will order a pizza or wings that will be the Monkey Tree food that they remember, and we will DoorDash it right to the bar for them.
We are excited also to take back a little bit of that and I know there are a lot of customers that miss the Monkey Tree brand,” Vornbrock said.
Made to order
And as for the menu, former Stake and Monkey Tree executive chef Peter Stevenson said he likes the fact that the new venue will be a continuance of the Monkey Tree brand which will include their familiar poutine and donairs.
And don’t say ‘frozen food’ to this chef.
“We stay away from the frozen products. It’s going to be old-school Italian style homemade pizzas,” Stevenson said.
“We make our own dough, our own sauce, grate our own cheese, make our own sausage, we make everything from scratch that we can,” he said.
With a selection of 12 pizzas to choose from, Stevenson said they will have a build-your-own pizza as well as gluten-free crust and vegan options.
One of the secrets to making a good pizza, he noted, is the homemade dough.
“I worked for years with an Italian family and there are certain things that you do with dough that just makes a difference,” he said.
“It won’t have a benign taste, I think people will taste it and know it is more of a homemade Italian pizza.”
“I want to keep that theme, so we have chicken parmesan sandwiches, meatball sandwiches, spaghetti, tetrazzini, which is another Monkey Tree item, and we want to make sure people understand the influence is Italian. Sicilian Italian. That’s kind of where we are at,” he said.
Overall, he said the combination of the pizza shop and the Stake catering business is a perfect fit.
“I am originally from Toronto, so when I came here, they made me feel at home, so here we are in another business venture having some fun. And the environment is really important too.
We are hoping to build a nice environment where people want to come to work and have a work-life balance.”
Sous chef Jonny Mombourquette agreed.
“I am really excited for this to get going. I am from Halifax, the pizza mecca. Peter and I are always talking about pizza and I have been thinking about this for years, and then Chef said let’s do it, so I am really excited,” Mombourquette said.
“We have got a really good team and have a lot of our former team from the (Monkey) Tree with us, so we have got solid people working for us.”
“It’s going to be great.”