Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Ross
Hi Eric, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
When it was time for me to graduate high school and go to college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. There was a cooks position open in our local hospital so I took the position and started learning how to cook. I fell in love with my job and cooking for people and decided to go to culinary school at Johnson & Wales. After graduating, I completed an internship at The Grove Park Inn, and then became a line cook at Williamsburg Inn where I was able to do a diinner for Julia Child. I went on to be a chef in health care where eventulully became the Excutive Chef at Johns Hopkins University by the age of 21. After that decieded to go back to school and get my bachelors degree back at Johnson & Wales. After graduation I was the Excutive Chef at MCV medical center in Richmond Va. Then I got married then moved to Chicago then moved to New Smynra Beach to open Panheads Pizzeria and from there we opened second location in Port Orange that lasted 5 years until hurricanes made us decide to close that location and focus only on the New Smynra location and our newly born catering side of Panheads. The catering company serves any kind of venue but we specializ in weddings at parties up to 500 people. One of our biggest highlights is being on dinners, dives, & drive inns with Guy Fieri.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not smooth at all had to figure out everything from scratch. Delt with a number of hurricanes. Covid was a nightmare. Cant keep up with the rising food cost and labor cost. But we are fortunate to survive all those events and keep open. We have good and consistent menu items that over the years have over 1,000 reviews at 4.5 rating.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a working owner. We are known for our unique pizzas, and homede gnocchi. We are one of the only pizza shops that I know of that mixes the dough everydaty by hand and no mixers. We make everything from scratch and have good reviews that reflect our quality
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Any cook books or I like reading about wine.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.panheadspizzeria.com/
- Instagram: Panheadspizzeria
