Pizza place offers up a different kind of delivery

Commercial fishermen were a little surprised on Father's Day, June 18, when the Tongass eased alongside them, offering pizzas for sale.

Nic Martin, owner of Nic's Pizza, and Brian Schwartz, pilot of the Tongass, took an idea Schwartz had for delivering pizzas to fishing vessels and sailed off with it. The two baked six pizzas, sold five and "ate one for quality control," Schwartz said. They covered 30 miles on 18 gallons of fuel, going out as far as Anita Bay.

Schwartz originally had the idea and fished it to his friends.

"Just like anybody who's been on the water, you think, 'You know what I'd love right now? Pizza,'" he said. "Everyone's thought of that but putting it into motion is a whole different story."

Coordinating the deliveries took a few weeks of planning. Both Martin and Schwartz had to be off work, the vessel, owned by Alaska Charter and Adventures, had to be available, and the fisheries had to be open.

"What works best for (delivery) are the gillnetters. The day before they anchor out there. You can just round down the beach on a trapline and just hit boat after boat. Whereas the crabbers are everywhere and you're chasing them down."

Schwartz cast the idea on various social media platforms to see if anyone would bite. He said it's a little difficult for anyone to know if they're going to want a pizza three days in advance, so they decided to make the food and take it out to see if anyone was interested. Instead of custom orders or specials, Martin baked pepperoni, Hawaiian, three-meat and supreme pizzas.

"The three-meat and supremes went way faster than the basics," Martin said. "The boys were hungry and wanted some meat and taters on their pizzas."

Most of the boats they approached thought they were troopers.

"People were kind of thrown off, thinking we were the troopers getting ready to board them," Schwartz said. "We were like, 'Nah, we just have pizzas.' People were like, 'What a time to be alive!'"

The large pizzas cost between $59 and $63 per pie, but those who bought them understood the overhead costs and were more than willing to pay the price, the duo said.

"I think we knew pretty much everyone we sold to," Schwartz said. "We'd know from a hundred yards away, 'Oh, that's so-and-so.' We'd call them on (Channel) 16 or just pull up next to them."

Both said the first time out was to see what worked and what didn't, and what kind of planning it would take.

"We would like to do it again," Martin said. "We would definitely try to target gillnetting, I think that would be the good one if they open up down at Nemo or something. You just run down the beach where everyone is anchored up. Just bing! bing! bing! down the row of boats."