Bear Paw Pizza Food Truck Grows Popular in Maple Grove
Few things in life pair better than pizza and a cold beer. At Maple Grove’s OMNI Brewing, customers can now get the best of both worlds.
“We just thought it was time for us to dip our toe in the water and get into food, and what goes better with beer than pizza,” said Zack Ward, OMNI Brewing founder.
However, we’re not just talking about any run of the mill, bar-style pizza. But rather, the handcrafted Neapolitan pizzas that Drew Nelson considers the best style of pizza on the planet.
“To me, it’s the ultimate comfort food, right,” said Nelson, one of the masterminds behind Bear Paw Pizza.
Bear Paw Pizza is a food truck that debuted at OMNI earlier this summer.
Every pizza is made by hand using fresh ingredients, and then it’s baked in the oven at about 750 degrees. All it takes is two-minutes in that oven to get the perfect marriage of a crispy outside and a soft, chewy center.
One of the pizza options at Bear Paw Pizza in Maple Grove.
“When you have a hot, melted, mozzarella cheese, and a nice little hint of salt to finish off your crust that’s been fermenting for basically 24 to 72 hours, you’ve really got a lot of flavor development there,” Nelson said.
So far, customers have taken notice.
“The pizza was great, yeah, I really enjoyed it,” said a customer from Maple Plain. “It tasted really good. I just got a pepperoni pizza that was very yummy.”
Pepperoni, margherita and classico are some of the more popular pizza flavors, but they also have some more specialty kinds such as elote and the hot honey pie.
“That’s one of our latest signature pizzas, which incorporates, pepperoni, jalapeño and goat cheese,” Nelson said of the hot honey pie pizza. “Kind of to cream it up a bit and give it a tang and cut out some of the heat. But then we top it with hot honey. so that’s been a real crowd-pleaser.”
Simply having a food truck on site has been a crowd-pleaser as well. Since OMNI opened seven years ago, it’s been hard to get a consistent food truck to come week after week.
However, Bear Paw is a permanent fixture, and because Nelson is constantly on a mission to make the perfect pizza, the customers are ultimately the ones who benefit.
“Good programming, good events, good people, good beer, good pizza what else do you need,” Nelson said.
Meanwhile, OMNI also has specials on Tuesdays where you can get a Bear Paw pizza and a pint for $15, which is essentially like getting the beer for free.
Related: Maple Grove Brewery Sends Spent Grains to the Farm
Drew Nelson makes a pizza inside the Bear Paw Pizza food truck.
