LYNCHBURG, Va. – Michael Torrence and his wife opened Upper Crust Pizza Company in 2005, but he had been in the pizza game longer than that.
He tells us, “Having previously run a food truck before, I knew I wanted to get back in that game.”
A fleet of two trucks (soon to be three) is serving up slices and pies to this day. At least once a week, they’re in downtown Lynchburg. They’re usually in Goode on Friday nights.
As for what keeps a business open this long, it’s all about quality.
“Still Mom-and-Pop quality. You get the same cheese, same sauce, same pepperoni whether you get 100 pizzas or one pizza.”
And it’s about being good at the basics.
“We’re basic, not bougie. We’re timeless, not trendy. There are food trends – restaurants that are putting all sorts of drizzles on pizza and all sorts of different toppings. That’s fun, and I enjoy that myself. At the end of the day, 90% of people want a pepperoni pizza.”
As you can imagine, that’s a top seller at Upper Crust, but there are many others.
“Our Fully-Dressed which is your basic supreme pizza. Big meat eaters – pepperoni, sausage, bacon and ham. My personal favorite is BBQ chicken. It’s so simple, but man it’s good. It’s just BBQ sauce, chicken and cheddar.”
Any pie you get is served with crust that’s quality is on the upper-end of the scale. It doesn’t fall apart, but easily folds - which Torrence says is the right way to eat pizza!
While his story is still being written, ours ends with the age-old debate.
“We do have pineapple. It’s a divisive ingredient. People like to debate if it has its place on pizza, but my sales would indicate that it does.”
We want you to voice your opinion. Does pineapple belong on pizza? You can comment on this story or vote in our poll by clicking here.