The Barras Market has become well known in recent years for its amazing selection of street food vendors.
Pizza Cult by Denis is the newest addition to the lineup and can be found in the London Road section of the market.
Pizza Cult by Denis is the newest addition to the lineup and can be found in the London Road section of the market.
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🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 My name is Dennis and I own the Pizza Cult here at the Barrows Market.
00:05 I was in sales for about 10 years and never enjoyed it for a second.
00:11 I travelled around a lot, so I lived in Australia for a little while and I lived in Canada for
00:16 a little while.
00:17 I did sales because it was an easy job to get, but then once I moved to Glasgow, I tried
00:25 to get into something different.
00:26 After lockdown, I was making pizzas and sourdough starters all through lockdown.
00:32 When it came to, I turned 30, I was like, "What do I actually want to do with my life?"
00:37 Someone jokingly suggested I should be a pizza chef because I was making loads of pizzas.
00:39 I was like, "Maybe I could do that, actually."
00:42 So I made a CV and put it out to a few places.
00:50 One of the guys, the owner of Strip Joint in Glasgow, in Finiston, he invited me for
00:55 an interview.
00:56 He read my CV wrong and thought I was a real pizza chef, but I'd put home pizza chef.
01:00 So he invited me in and then realised.
01:01 I explained to him the dream and what I want to do and all that.
01:06 He was like, "It'll bring me on as a trial and to see how I go."
01:11 The starter was useless.
01:12 I couldn't even get the pizza on the peel.
01:15 It was really, really bad.
01:16 But I think he just liked my attitude or whatever, so he invited me in to start and I was just
01:22 washing dishes for a month and then eventually worked my way up to running their pizza section
01:27 after about six months.
01:29 And then after another six months, I got the head chef job at Franco Manca.
01:32 I did that for about a year and then the opportunity came to open this place.
01:37 So I was just like, "Yeah, jump there."
01:38 So I just bought the oven and bought all the bits and then here we are.
01:41 The plan was to get a van, which I still might do eventually, but then I just came down the
01:46 Barrows one weekend and it just seemed like a really cool place.
01:50 I don't know, I just love the vibe of the place.
01:52 So I spoke to...
01:53 They're gone now, but the people that owned Rome Coffee around the corner, I spoke to
01:57 them and I was like, "How do I get in here?"
01:58 And they gave me the numbers and we just back and forth for a few months and then eventually
02:02 I just came here.
02:03 It's been great.
02:04 It's been busy.
02:05 It's been good.
02:06 They went with the Pride Market last week as well, which was really, really busy.
02:13 The issue is selling out too early.
02:14 That's kind of my problem.
02:16 So it's hard to gauge how busy it's going to be and I don't really want to sell out,
02:21 but I don't want to be wasting food either.
02:22 I feel like I'm constantly learning the dough every weekend.
02:26 It feels like every weekend is a different challenge of how to manage the dough.
02:30 This one's actually really popular for vegans because it's a vegan one.
02:34 The marinara.
02:35 It's just like garlic, basil, herbs and olive oil.
02:38 All the ingredients I get, I try and get the highest quality I can.
02:42 So even something as simple as that, just tomato sauce, no cheese or anything, it sells
02:45 really well because it's just good fresh ingredients.
02:48 Just get inspiration from Instagram or just from places I eat out.
02:52 Sometimes I'll eat a sandwich somewhere and I'm like, "This would be a nice pizza," and
02:55 I'll just play around with it.
02:56 I think they're gone now as well, but there was a cafe in Denison called East Coffee and
03:01 they used to do these amazing bagels and they did a brie and bacon and jam bagel.
03:06 It was amazing.
03:08 So I just want to mention my girlfriend, Emma, who has been amazing to help me.
03:12 We just started this.
03:13 She's been down on the weekends.
03:14 She works nine to five during the week, so she's come down on the weekends on her days
03:17 off to come and help, which has been great.
03:18 She's been helping me with a lot of social media stuff and just been amazing.