28th September 2011

BRIDPORT: Jalopy Pizza named best snack in town

By Tom Glover

STREET food traders, Jalopy Pizza, have been celebrated as one of the country’s best at a national awards ceremony and are now on course for a second honour.

Earlier this month Jalopy Pizza beat more than 2,000 entries to win the Best Snack Award at the British Street Food Awards, with their Pizza a la Puttanesca impressing a panel of esteemed judges. 

In a separate competition the food traders have now been shortlisted in the small business category at the Open 4 Business awards.

The British Street Food Awards were held at Jimmy’s Festival in Suffolk earlier this month, where a judging panel including celebrity chef Anthony Worrall-Thompson and actress and cookbook author Fay Ripley chose their winners.

Also on the panel were Jan Matthews, Head of Catering for London 2012, and the director of independent caterer trade association NCASS, Bob Fox. The panel was chaired by the founder of the British Street Food Awards, the food journalist and broadcaster Richard Johnson.

Katherine said she was “completely over the moon” after winning the Best Snack Award.

“At the beginning I was in it for pocket money, we just wanted to add another string to our bow, do something that was fun, something that was different and I had no ambition beyond that,” she said.

“To win the award is amazing, it’s really boosted our confidence. When you’ve got Anthony Worrall-Thompson tasting your pizzas and telling you they’re very good and Fay Ripley saying it’s the best pizza she’s ever had, it’s very surreal.”

Less than three years ago, Jalopy Pizza’s Peugeot J7 van was rotting away at the home of its French owner after 30 years of service. 

After tracking it down on an online auction site, Katherine Locke and her partner Adrian Everitt rescued the van and resurrected it to its former glory.

The resurrection process influencing the business name, with “Jalopy” being an American slang term that translates into English as “old banger”.

Katherine said: “We bought the van for not very much money, it was just a heap of rust, it didn’t go, it didn’t do anything. 

“The owner was on the verge of retirement and had obviously not looked after it for the past few years, it was wintertime and he just wanted to get rid of it. He must have thought his ship had come in when these crazy English people came along offering him good money for it. We resurrected it, which is part of our Jalopy ethos really, that sort of ‘make do and mend’ idea.” 

After weeks spent working on dough and sauce recipes, as well as restoring the van, Katherine and Adrian held a trial night for the business.

“I spent a long time perfecting recipes and thinking about how we would do it and many tears were shed trying to get everything right. I thought I’d kind of got it and so we invited friends and family to come and try it out,” said Katherine.

“We thought it would be a really soft entry into it but half an hour in I was crying in the van, weeping. We couldn’t pick up the pizzas, the dough was all over the place, everything was burnt and our friends were trying to pretend it was lovely when it clearly was all horrible.”

Jalopy Pizza began operating at the St Michael’s Trading Estate to avoid council restraints on street trading.

“When we first went down there was very little there and people thought we were mad but then people started coming and bringing their own wine and their own chairs and it became a really nice evening with people hanging out and those Friday nights were really busy and great fun.”

Since then the business has gone from strength to strength. 

Jalopy Pizza have added a second van to their fleet and now operate at Poundbury on a Wednesday night, Beaminster on a Thursday night and St Michael’s Trading Estate on a Friday Night, as well as taking bookings for private parties and events.

Having herself survived breast cancer in 2007, Katherine is donating 50p to Cancer Research UK for every one of the award winning Puttanesca Pizzas sold during Breast Cancer Awareness month in October.

PICTURE: AWARD WINNER - Katherine Locke celebrates the British Street Food Award

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