1 of 4
Nick Walthall of pizza pop-up Danger Pie is kicking off a weekly residency at Blanchard’s Coffee Morris Street in August. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
2 of 4
Seasonal pie with Virginia peaches, Sun Gold tomatoes, corn, house-pickled jalapenos and basil (Photo courtesy Danger Pie)
3 of 4
Cheese Hog, the house pizza for Danger Pie (Photo courtesy Danger Pie)
4 of 4
Photo by Eileen Mellon
Upon hearing the name Danger Pie, visions of a pastry-slinging superhero — perhaps a mysterious, cape-adorned character or an enemy of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — might come to mind. Whatever imagery it conjures, it’s actually the alter ego of Nick Walthall, founder of the namesake new pizza venture.
“Legally, Danger is not my last name,” Walthall says. “Depending on the timeline where you met me in Richmond, people either knew me as Nick Danger, or Pizza Nick.”
After spending nearly two decades in Richmond’s craft beer scene, Walthall is finally launching the project he’s been perfecting in his backyard pizza oven for years. In August, Danger Pie will begin a two-days-a-week residency at Blanchard’s Coffee at 26 N. Morris St., serving preordered pizzas through the coffee shop’s pickup window.
“I’ve always wanted to have a small thing, pizza or beer, or ideally under one roof … and I’ve been talking about it forever,” he says.
A longtime brewer and Lakeside native, Walthall gained the “Nick Danger” moniker after earning the highest honor in Boy Scouts; when filling out a form for a newspaper photo, he wrote in the nickname. A similar opportunity presented itself when he graduated college and received his diploma — and the name stuck. Though he studied creative advertising at VCU, it was craft beer that captured his attention. “I knew immediately that I wanted to brew beer,” he says.
Post-college, a stint with AmeriCorps brought him to Boulder, Colorado, where he also dabbled in beer. His first gig back in Richmond was making pizza at Whole Foods, where he worked for two years before hopping back on the beer circuit.
Walthall’s sudsy resume spans from Hardywood Park Craft Brewery to Tired Hands Brewing Company in Philadelphia to running the mixed fermentation program at The Veil Brewing Co. Currently, he works at Bingo Beer Co. Even as he built a career in beer, pizza remained his constant side project.
He describes his personal pizza style as a hybrid: “It’s definitely not New York pizza, and it’s not Neapolitan, and it’s not sourdough. There’s a pretty puffy crust, and it’s not super soft, but certainly not floppy, and not as rigid as New York pizza,” he says. “It’s kind of like a sweet in between.”
That distinctly Danger Pie dough is made using a blend of three flours, including Sub Rosa’s, and undergoes a 48-hour fermentation. Sauce is made with organic California tomatoes. “We’re not cooking it down — which I think is really cool, but that’s not our thing,” he says.
“I’m taking a lot of what I’ve done in beer and learned about beer and applying that to pizza, without it being a direct 1-to-1; it’s definitely influenced how we make our dough.”
Danger Pie’s flagship pizzas are The Cheese Hog and Marinara, the latter a red pie with olive oil and garlic. For the pop-ups (Thursdays and Fridays), expect those varieties, an option to add toppings, plus a seasonal special or two. Fun creations in the past have included Martini Lunch, a garlic and Parmesan bake topped with Route 11 Potato Chips, Spanish boquerones (anchovies), olives, piparra peppers and manchego cheese; The Cowboy, with smoked English cheddar, red onion and candied jalapeno; and a roasted leek pizza with fontina, mozzarella and an herby, satsuma citrus-blasted radicchio and pistachio salad.
Dash’s Favorite, featuring roasted local sweet corn, shishito peppers and Agriberry Farm blueberries (Photo courtesy Danger Pie)
He’s looking to hit on multiple flavor notes, from salty and spicy to funky, bitter and familiar. Ingredients have included kabocha squash, shiitake mushrooms, muscadine grapes, and taleggio and Gruyere cheeses, along with dandelion greens, garlic scapes, sweet corn, blueberries and Sun Gold tomatoes.
“We do a lot of playful, fresh, seasonal things,” Walthall says, noting a parallel to the beer styles he typically enjoys.
A home gardener for as long as he can remember, Walthall says his shelves are lined with cookbooks; he reads and bookmarks recipes and finds joy in being in the kitchen. A source of pizza inspiration for him is the farm-forward Lovely’s Fifty Fifty in Portland, Oregon, from chef Sarah Minnick, featured on the pizza spinoff of “Chef’s Table.”
“Her pizzas are incredible, but it’s very seasonally driven,” he says. “So that’s the idea, continuing what we’ve been doing in the backyard, and changing it as we see fit, or as we get things dialed in.”
Although Walthall is the face of Danger Pie, he is quick to credit his fiancee, Michelle Hamson, whom he describes as the other half of the “we” behind the endeavor. From recipe testing to helping plan the business, she’s been a steady partner as Danger Pie has taken shape.
Walthall also traces his pizza obsession back to an old recipe published in The New York Times from Brooklyn’s Roberta’s, an iconic Bushwick-born pizza shop known for its wood-fired pies that shaped his early dough-making days. “That was 15 years ago when I started, and I’ve just been tinkering with it ever since,” he says.
Chances are, if you’ve had Danger Pie pizzas, Walthall considers you a pal. He’s mostly been “ripping pies” for friends and neighbors, supplying a handful of intimate events, and he made an impromptu appearance at Celladora Wines in the Fan.
“I’ve always been drawn to hobbies that have an outcome, that not only can you enjoy, but you can share. Gardening, pizza, beer — whatever it is, you make it, you can share.”
Nine months ago, he wrote a loose business plan, in hopes of finding a space to hold a casual residency. When Seth Bauserman, head roaster for Blanchard’s, approached him about doing a pop-up as part of a team appreciation event, the next steps started to unfold.
He purchased an oven for the residency and hopes to get an ABC license to serve a limited beer and wine menu during pickups. Walthall describes the partnership as mutually positive, presenting the chance for him to streamline costs and have a consistent place to share his pizzas, while making use of Blanchard’s cafe when it’s closed.
“I feel like I’m in a good place with the pizza, and this rad opportunity came up,” he says. “They’re definitely helping me out; it would be nice to see more of that [collaboration] among businesses.”
As for a brick-and-mortar restaurant, he’s not making any promises. Walthall has already turned a hobby into a vocation, and, for now, he’s simply focused on getting pies to the people.
But, he says, “this is definitely allowing me to scratch an itch that I’ve had for 20 years. I get to do my own branding or marketing or choose what days we are open; it’s an opportunity that I’ve wanted to make happen, and now it finally is.”
Danger Pie pizzas will be available by preorder only. Weekly preorders will be announced online, and pizzas can be picked up at the window of Blanchard’s Morris Street cafe.
