A pizza-obsessed deli plus informal restaurant where you can buy all the equipment and ingredients to do it yourself. That’s the dream Brad Golchin and his wife Sirpa Gunn have made into reality at Pizzata in Pukekohe.
From left: Brad Golchin, Sirpa Gunn (Owners of Pizzata)
and Taylor Moss (Deli Manager)
A Pizza Obsession Becomes a Business
Brad is an accountant by profession and a self-confessed ‘geek’, specialising in e-commerce. He’s a man who doesn’t do things by halves, especially pizza. Struck by a notion to create truly authentic pizza himself, he was willing to research and invest in the best home and portable ovens to do it. But even when he got his hands on a great machine for the job, his mission was not over. To conjure up the exact mouth-watering flavours he desired, he had to scour Italy in search of the finest ingredients. This, to be fair, was something of a delight to the regular European traveller. And once he came home with the goods and had cooked up his dream pizza, he knew he had to share the whole experience.
“About three years ago, he went down this pizza rabbit hole,” says Sirpa. “He started researching pizza ovens. We wanted to build a pizza oven in our garden. Next thing we’re reselling them! We began as an online business. But once people had pizza ovens, they needed the proper ingredients. It’s actually very difficult to get authentic Italian flour, for example. So now we basically do everything to do with pizza.”
That includes serving it up fresh, tasty and daily in its informal licensed premises.
Workshops, Wine and Community
“We started just one night a week,” says Sirpa. “Just really to showcase what a real Neapolitan pizza was like. But the demand was there, so we now serve them every day. We’ve since also started importing a range of Italian wines through our sister company Divino.”
Pizzata hosts a range of pizza-making and dough-making workshops each month. There's also kids' pizza-making classes to pass the passion on to the next generation. Plus, wine tastings and pizza and margherita nights to make Pizzata a true community hub.
The business supplies pizza ovens, dough mixers and other equipment to commercial kitchens. And Sirpa leads the commercial team-building events, which put the pizza centre stage.
“In the run-up to Christmas we might have three events a day,” she explains. “Pizza-making workshops. Catered functions for companies and corporate clients. Because we have the mobile ovens and tables, we can set up for a team of over 100 in a big space.”
Brad says: “We’re using the business as a demonstration of how to go for a niche with e-commerce, and really focus for success. So a lot of what we’re doing, the products we have, aren't available anywhere else, and certainly not in the one place to the immediate south of Auckland.”
Today, their website hums with orders going out across New Zealand, while the combined shop and restaurant set up attracts visitors from all over to get their piece of the pie.
“We live in Pukekohe, which is why we based the business here,” says Brad. “But the whole point of the business being here is for the lifestyle. We can drive for five minutes to get to the businesses we use for things like signage, equipment servicing and more. They’ve been so supportive.”
We sampled Pizzata pizzas and pizza sandwiches for lunch, with enlivening doses of the firm’s own brand spicy sauce. And we can confirm that all the hard work, research and attention to detail was so worth it.
