A Guelph business is looking to deepen your love for pizza.
Casa Deep Dish Pizza is a new takeout business offering freshly made deep dish pizzas. Matteo Furfaro launched the business June 16 and operates out of a shared kitchen space in 10C, located at 42 Carden St.
Furfaro said he began perfecting the deep dish pizza after a conversation with one of his entrepreneurship professors at Algonquin College, who said there was no deep dish pizza in Ottawa.
“I took that as a personal challenge, ‘Okay, I’m going to do that, I’ll figure it out,’” said Furfaro, “So over the next few months, I figured out recipes, watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to perfect it, and over the next few months, I perfected my recipe."
“I brought it to him one day and he loved it, and he said, ‘This is a viable business.’"
Deep dish refers to the way the pizza is cooked, which causes the pizza to resemble a pie instead of a flatbread. Tomato sauce is also added over cheese and other toppings. Furfaro explains deep dish pizzas are popular in Chicago and other parts of the United States, but not so much in Canada.
"I don’t why we haven’t gravitated towards it yet, but that’s just one of my goals," said Furfaro. "I know once someone tries my product, they will be back."
Casa Deep Dish Pizza offers six types of deep dish pizzas; classic, vegetarian, meat lovers, deluxe, build your own (BYO) and Chicago style. Furfaro said every pizza is made to order, with ingredients from Ontario.
The recipe for Furfaro's deep dish pizza is also very personal because it combines family recipes.
“Coming from a half Italian background, I was able to use a lot of the recipes my family taught me, such as my nona’s sauce recipe, my nono’s sausage recipe and my mom’s bread recipe, and I was able to take all three and make a deep dish pizza," he said.
Furfaro said he has been cooking since he was three with his mother. He has also worked for seven different restaurants in Guelph.
“Food is mainly where my heart lies, if you name a restaurant, I’ve probably worked at it," said Furfaro, who got his first restaurant job at 15.
“I really love cooking and what I’ve with this business, and especially in other restaurants, is it’s social. It’s a very social industry," Furfaro continues. "You get to interact with your customers a lot, the stuff you can put on social media is cool, like showing processes and stuff, just the whole food industry, the more that I learn about it, the more that I enjoy it.”
Casa Deep Dish Pizza is part of the Summer Company program, which is run by the Business Centre of Guelph-Wellington. The program helps students launch a business while providing mentorship, business training and funding.
As word spreads about Casa Deep Dish Pizza, Furfaro hopes to continue this business and explore other opportunities in the food industry. He would also like to use his business to give back by donating unused food to local food banks, homeless shelters or individuals in need.
"I was part of a program called SDG (UN Sustainable Development Goals) Cities and I took a four-week course about how to try and implement that into my business," said Furfaro, who is planning to reach out to organizations who would like to partner with him.
"As my business continues to grow, I’m looking for ways to give back to the community, because that’s the community I am a part of, that’s the community that is supporting me, so it’s very important to me to give back."
Casa Deep Dish Pizza is open Thursday and Friday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. To place an order, go to casadeepdishpizza.ca. You can also follow Casa Deep Dish Pizza on Instagram or TikTok.
