Although we enjoy what we do it is always rewarding to have people tell us that they enjoy our efforts. We bake frozen pizzas and then sell them to distributors and stores who in turn offer them to the public. Along this journey, we try to keep a level head, our feet firmly rooted, and our hearth burning. Both positive and critical feedback get a fair shake with all of us here. We are humbled by compliments and attentive to suggestions and criticisms.
Here's what the press, a few retailers, and customers - the very real people that enjoy our efforts - have said about our work.
July 16,, 2008
"Flatbread - The Anti-Steak of California's Central Coast Wine Country - Flatbread is a phenomenon, a quasi-pizzaria using local, sustainable, seasonal ingredients. There will be a wait, but the flatbreads, über-organic sort of pizzas, are delicious, made almost exclusively from the produce of the local farmers markets." - Pulitzer Prize winning writer Jonathan Gold
February 27, 2008
5-Stars - "Incredible food, wonderful people, a unique & memorable experience"
February 20, 2008
"Flatbread is producing the best flatbread/pizza in the region, they’re doing it in a thoughtful way with consideration for the land, and at least as important, they’re doing it in a way that’s fun for customers."
The Santa Barbara News Press
November 9, 2007 Edition of The Scene
Foodie Finds: Going green is certainly the thing to do. Flatbread pursues their philosophy and approaches food with great respect. The Flatbread team shops at local farmer's markets and stocks all local wines, supporting small farms that often have a much smaller environmantal footprint. The Flatbread menu reflects the seasons, featuring food that is seasonal and fresh for all thier specials.
GAYOT.com
The Santa Ynez Valley Journal
October 26, 2007 Edition
Delicious Nourishment - certified natural Chef and Nutrition Educator Micah Elconin raves "When the doors open, people from all walks of life enter into their own personal Mecca for nourishment. ... acquiring all the ingredients it uses from less than 300 miles away. Everything including their flour, cheeses, oils, and of course their produce."
Central Coast Travels
September 29, 2007 Edition
"A must-visit if you're hankering for a pleasant, upscale but casual and unique dining experience."
Variety Magazine
September 18, 2007 Edition
"Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton, prepare to throw down: Flatbread pizza."
Central Coast Magazine
July / August 2007 Edition
'07 Best Of Picks - Flavor packed and made from seasonal ingredients, please don't call it pizza.
Santa Barbara Independent
The Land of Sand Dunes and Flatbread - Los Alamos is a 25-minute drive from coastal access tantamount in beauty to any of the coastline I drove through in Northern California. And it proved to be the perfect Memorial Day weekend getaway.
At American Flatbread, we put our name on the list—the
restaurant doesn’t take reservations—and settled in at the bar for
pre-dinner drinks. The mirror above the bar was emblazoned with the words,
“Food remembers the acts of the hands and heart,” which is exactly
the motto you want your food preparers to live by. And the bar snack? A giant
wooden bowl of fresh sugar snaps. I understood instantly why this place was
worthy of an hour’s drive; this was no ordinary restaurant.
A beer lover to the end, I enjoyed a pint of Butte Creek pilsner while the
others oohed and ahhed over the huge selection of local wines. The Alma Rosa
was so perfect, in fact, that my fellow diehard beer drinker handed me the
pint she’d ordered after trying a sip of her friend’s Pino Gris.
“Drink this,” she said. “I can’t not order that wine.”
The non-drinkers among us enjoyed the sarsaparilla, an all-natural soda similar
to root beer.
After about 45 minutes, we were seated at an outdoor table. Despite the friendly
wait staff’s constant offers to turn on heat lamps, it was balmy enough
that we never needed them and didn’t feel at all disappointed to miss
out on the lively dining room atmosphere. After a few minutes of contemplating
the one-of-a-kind menus (literally: the cover of each one was illustrated
with a different drawing), one of our diners piped up almost desperately,
“We’re going to share things, right? I just imagined having to choose
just one kind of these pizzas and got really sad.” So when the waitress
came over, it was an ordering free-for-all, each of us calling out our pick
until we’d ordered what we thought would be entirely too much food: several
salads—which someone aptly described as “dynamic”—and
five large pizzas. But when the traditional cheese Medicine Wheel arrived
first and was gone within minutes, we all knew there’d be no leftovers.
I come from a family that likes to cook—as in, having donuts on Saturday
mornings meant forming circles out of dough and dropping them in vats of oil.
My dad’s specialty has always been pizza, so I know what to expect from
homemade dough, sauce made from fresh tomatoes and garlic, and toppings to
order. Well, I hate to say it, Dad, but even your pizza didn’t prepare
me for the Flatbread experience. Even though it’s thin crust, “bread”
is an appropriate word for it because each of the ingredients was so distinct
that the blanket term “pizza” really doesn’t apply: this was
homemade bread covered in the finest cheeses, herbs, and vegetables.
Of our five pizzas, my personal favorites were Punctuated Equilibrium (Kalamata
olives, sweet peppers, feta cheese, rosemary, onions, and garlic) and Cheese
and Herb, while others swooned over the Revolution (mushrooms and caramelized
onions) and Pepperoni and Peppers. But the fact was, though I normally have
very distinctive likes and dislikes, every bite of every pizza was heavenly.
The patio was decorated in handmade prayer flags, each with a different drawing
or message. We laughed at “Make wine, not war,” but partly because
American Flatbread is one of those places that lets you believe in that kind
of simplistic idealism. That there are bustling restaurants dedicated to that
way of thinking makes it seem at least that maybe we didn’t irrevocably
screw up our earth.
The feeling that everything just might work out alright after all was hammered
home when dessert arrived. I don’t think any of us minded that they were
out of the brownie sundae when the plates of fresh strawberries with melt-on-your-tongue
meringues and homemade whipped cream arrived. And as for the gourmet s’mores—have
you ever spent 15 minutes meticulously roasting a marshmallow to perfection?
This was that marshmallow, except it was huge and drenched in dark chocolate.
At the end of the weekend, Flatbread converts the restaurant into a production
bakery, from where they make frozen pizzas available at such convenient locations
as Albertson’s, Gelson’s, and Lazy Acres.But as long as I’m
within 100 miles of Los Alamos, I don’t plan to taint the Flatbread dining
experience with convenience. I have a sneaking suspicion that the trip was
half the taste.
Santa Barbara News Press
June 1, 2007 Edition
Flatbread is the Best Pizza Reviewed - Delivered.
FOOD AND WINE Magazine
April, 2007, Issue
Taste Test Winner: Best Frozen Pizzas.
Wood-Fired in Vermont or California, this pizza has great cheese flavor!
March 29, 2007
"Flatbread makes what's probably the best pizza on the West Coast"
San Luis Obispo New Times
March 29, 2007
Enjoy artisinal food - get it fresh or frozen from Flatbread.
When I first tasted Flatbread I had an epiphany. The flavor and the chew was delectable, crisp wheat crust transported me back two decades to my first taste of Acme Bread from Steve Sullivan, baker at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. When I sampled Flatbread I realized that it was the best pizza I'd ever tasted - and I worked for Chef Wolfgang Puck.
A Tour Guide to Central Coast Wines (Chronicle Books)
March 2007
The book is loaded with dining advice too, even where to get a great wood-fired pizza at the end of a hard day's wine touring (hint: It's in Los Alamos). The Central Coast Food Connection - Flatbread's all-natural artisinal pizza topped with organic ingredients draws the crowds.
Santa Barbara Scene Magazine
February 9, 2007 Edition
Behind the scenes: When Frozen Became Fabulous!
If you've ever been to Los Alamos, you'll know it's a sleepy town quietly perched on the hip of the 101. The town is decidedly mellow, and it seems as though it would be easy to blink and miss it, but there is something you surely do not want to miss next time you're driving through -- American Flatbread.
The story of American Flatbread is a convoluted one. Clark
Staub, the western pioneer for the brand, spent 20 years in the record business,
achieving the prestigious position of senior vice president of marketing for
Capitol Records. But 20 years proved too many and he wanted a change of scene.
Being a hobbyist bread baker, Staub thought it a great idea
to open an artisanal bakery. "I had never even baked more than four loaves
at a time," he says, "but I was so impressed by the process of mixing
flour, water and yeast and ending up with thousands of loaves of bread."
Despite being a bread-baking novice, Staub's Claremont bakery was a success
and certainly no end of hard work. The long hours and physical and emotional
drain of bakery work were what ultimately prompted Staub to accept a headhunter's
invite to manage branding for Burton Snowboards in Vermont.
Staub's return to the corporate world was, thankfully, short
because it was in Vermont that he met and befriended George Schenk, father
of American Flatbread.
"George had a pizzeria in an old barn," Staub
recalls, "and I immediately fell in love with the guy." Previous
to this encounter, he had never had frozen pizza and he wasn't even a big
pizza fan, but he was a "bread fanatic and the idea of putting delicious
toppings on bread was an attractive one."
So together, Staub and Schenk began building their expansion plan. They decided
that, from the sustainable perspective, it would be better to have a production
facility on either side of the country so that their product wouldn't have
to travel as far to reach hungry mouths.
Almost three years later, the West coast satellite of American
Flatbread makes about 3,000 pizzas a day, supplies 25 states with those pizzas,
employs 40 local citizens, and opens its doors Friday and Saturday nights
to droves of eager pizza eaters -- some of whom drive all the way from San
Francisco to sink their teeth into Flatbread's specialties.
When asked about why his product is skyrocketing to pizza fame, Staub puts
it simply. "Our pizza is separated by the fact that it is 100 percent
handmade and human hands are involved at every step -- our pizza is full of
love and attention."
Staub and his crew are obviously doing something right, because they have
been voted best frozen pizza on numerous occasions and are doubling the size
of their production facility.
Santa Barbara News Press
February 9, 2007 Edition
4-Star Restaurant Rating - Excellent
All Love at American Flatbread! I've been singing the praises of American Flatbread's Hearth in the Cottonwoods for weeks now. The Los Alamos outpost is the epitome of hippies with an excellent marketing plan who have stayed with the times without sacrificing their ideals. Nor have they sacrificed their love of organic-local-artisanal and sustainable ingredients and beverages.
Come Friday and Saturday nights, though, the place changes into its restaurant hat and it is apparent that American Flatbread is the place to be in the Valley, playing a gracious host to locals, destination diners and the who's who of the wine world.
The hearth is one of the most creative and crafty hot spots I've seen with a beautiful tile mosaic "backsplash" and candles perched on the stepped bricks, giving it a special glow. Once seated, with a view of the hand-hewn, wood-fired oven, we watched the raw flatbreads -- with names like Medicine Wheel and Punctuated Equilibrium -- be transformed into bubbling hot nourishment.
Specials, offered every weekend to showcase the season's finest bounty, are available only in the larger size, and descriptions of them can be obtained in advance on American Flatbread's Web site at www.foodremembers.com.
I was full, full of peace, love and happiness. Not to mention flatbread that will change your definition of pizza and have you coming back for more.
Arizona Republic
January 30, 2007 Edition
American Flatbread breaks the frozen-pizza mold with fresh, creative touches that range from simple (Cheese and Herb) to fancy roasted tomatoes, black beans and corn.
Wall Street Journal
January 25, 2007 Edition
For our frozen pizza tasting, we put pizzas up against American Flatbread whose bakery-restaurants are known for their wholesome pizza and incredibly long lines. Tomato Sauce and Three Cheese "Gorgeous, dark, slightly misshapencrust crust with a strong wheat flavor."
Santa Barbara - The American Riviera
January 24, 2007 Edition
Every region has its stash of great roadside eateries, places locals haunt and tourists hanker for. These sleeves-up, non-franchised, no-reservations outposts are driven by cooks, bakers and pit-masters who are true Americana folk artists, preserving regional cuisine infused with a dash of local color. In Santa Barbara, the area’s rich and diverse agricultural and culinary roots run deep – as does the devotion of local chefs helming the stoves.
Seeking a perfect union of fire and rock? Hightail it to American Flatbread’s weekend restaurant – Hearth in the Cottonwoods. Here, owner Clark Staub and artisan bakers cull local organic and sustainably grown ingredients (within a 300 mile radius) including the water and wood source to turn out a selection of stunning pizzas from a primitive 900-degree wood-fired oven. Utilizing local rocks and clay, the oven is the pride of Staub, who hand-crafted it with the help of local masons. On weekends, the bakery’s stone hearth lends a cozy atmosphere to the bustling restaurant which has become a hot spot for local vintners given its Los Alamos location. Fresh yet funky, the interior is home grown with tables hewn from local recycled barnwood, wine barrel stools, a mirror-backed bar and old fashioned wood paneling from nearby Lompoc Penitentiary. More than 85 local wines are offered with 15 by the glass, as well as a few salads and specials, determined by the local produce in season.
Santa Maria Sun
January 2007
Foodies worldwide wait in suspense for the newest flavors - Poised to fill a growing demand for flatbread the folks at American Flatbread will continue to turn out thousands of their mouthwatering pizzas. Made from locally grown, mostly organic ingredients, these delectable discs also bear the savory flavors imparted by a "primitive wood-fired oven," a retro appliance increasingly favored by discerning cooks.
Radio Interview broadcast on NPR Radio Station KCBX
October 2006
American Flatbread baker Clark Staub is interviewed on the NPR radio show "Keeping it Fresh on the Central Coast" with Charles Myers on public supported radio station KCBX. Listen to the October broadcast.
SAN FRANCISCO TRIBUNE
October 29, 2006 EDITION
"An old stage stop not far off Highway 101 between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, Los Alamos is a good setting for a haunted mansion. Two of the most interesting places in town are only open on weekends. American Flatbread Co. makes irresistible-looking organic pizzas. Mostly they're frozen and shipped to retailers, but on Friday and Saturday nights the place opens as a restaurant. It looked wonderful."
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
September 14, 2006 EDITION
"My dinner was a symphony of late-summer flavors, including a flawlessly blistered flatbread. A stupendous wine list dedicated to Santa Barbara County producers, and the house organic Flatbread Red Ale, and American Flatbread is a worthy destination restaurant."
SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT
September 7, 2006 EDITION
"What's Hot? American Flatbread. Just when you thought you'de never have to hear another Sideways reference...bam! The funky gray house and production kitchen, fashioned of recycled materials, turns into a hopping restaurant and veritable who's who of winemakers on Friday and Saturday nights. Made from organic and sustainably produced ingredients, the flawless smokey pies emerge from a handmade 20 ton eartthen oven laden with seasonal ingredients."
REAL SIMPLE MAGAZINE
September, 2006 Issue
American Flatbread wins the "Road Test" of frozen pizzas!
"Winner - None of our testers could believe this pizza came from the freezer... many tasters asked for seconds."
SANTA BARBARA SEASONS Magazine
Set / Oct / Nov '06 Issue
"Sourcing ingredients from local farmers who share their reverence for the land, this Los Alamos restaurant draws large, lively crowds, who come for the down-to-earth, polished rustic atmosphere, and menu of super-fresh and delicious flatbreads and salads."
COAST NEWS - San Luis Obispo County
August 9-15, 2006 Issue
"Our trip took us to an anomaly in dining. An experience so church like with reference toward the food and the act of eating it, I felt like I should have worn a hat. The best organic meal I have ever experienced... I had the freshest, tastiest salad ever, (and) my husband, Mr.Dessert Special, about dropped dead from pleasure.The service was wonderful and you could tell that every employee was truly pleased to be working in this place. You could taste the love in the food. A great story, amazing food and a funky town, this was a night to remember, a story to be told."
June12, 2006
"Eating local helps ensure an authentic culinary experience, giving people exceptional taste and freshness while bringing them closer to the source.... in tiny Los Alamos, pizzas made from local ingredients are cooked in a wood-burning oven in the open kitchen. Glasses of local wine are a fixture on diners' tables, and it's a great place to eavesdrop on conversations by local vintners about the state of the current crop."
TRAVEL AND LEASURE - GOLF MAGAZINE
May / June, 2006 Issue
"This artisinal bakery magnanimously transforms itself into a pizzaria two nights of the week. Delicious wood-fired pizzas baked in a massive stone oven, employing all local, incredibly fresh, organically grown ingredients. What a gift to the area, and arguably the best pizza I've ever had. Pizzas are ridiculously low-priced for what you get." - Rex Pickett's Sideways Tour
MALIBU TIMES
May 26, 2006
"What would motivate four foodies to drive 500 miles roundtrip, in a gas guzzling Hummer for a day excursion not found in any brochure? In three words: American Flatbread Pizzas. We are wanted to know if the flatbread pizzas and housemade desserts at American Flatbread in Los Alamos, nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley, met or surpassed the current buzz... At American Flatbread, Staub was baking pizzas nonstop, placing them with surgical precision into a primitive wood-fired earthen oven, which he built, by the way... This is the "kinda" place you hear about from friends, especially those organically inclined...Each pizza is a labor of love, not a statement of corporate conformity."
SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT
April 27, 2006
"Of course, a trip to Los Alamos would not be complete without a visit to one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara County, American Flatbread. To write off this restaurant as a pizza parlor is to do it a great injustice... If towns were movies, Santa Barbara would probably be an American Classic like Casablanca. Los Alamos, on the other hand, would probably be an off-beat cult classic like Harold and Maude."
WHOLE LIFE TIMES
March 2006 EDITION
"There are only two places in the world where you can find Santa Maria Brewing Co.’s Organic Flatbread Red Belgian-style beer: at the Central California brewery where it’s made and at the pizzeria that commissioned it. Each is unforgettable. Quite another thing is American Flatbread, down the road in Los Alamos, a sleepy hamlet two hours north of Los Angeles. By weekday it’s a factory churning out artisanal pizzas for sale in the freezer section of Whole Foods. But on Friday and Saturday nights the cavernous building opens its doors to a steady stream of locals and savvy out-of-towners who line up for the all-organic, wood-fired pizzas, the whimsical art on the walls, the easygoing staff and, yes, the beer. Organic Flatbread Red is a clean, pungent brew that slips easily down the hatch. It’s developed a loyal following since last summer when Flatbread owner Clark Staub approached brewer Dan Hilker about making a special beer for his place."
VARIETY MAGAZINE (Hollywood, CA)
September 15, 2005 EDITION
"Pizza good enough to leave you speechless"
PERFECTION
August 27th, 2005
Lou, from Santa Monica, CA, contacted us after he ate dinner in Waitsfield, Vermont. We invited him up to our weekend restaurant and after visiting us here's what he wrote on his blog.
There are very few things in life that are perfect -- a baby's skin, a sunset over the ocean; the timeless note played on a finely tuned guitar. Sometimes people mistake pure perfection with manufactured perfection. They think that only by changing and refining something can it be truly pristine. That's true in some cases, but real perfection isn't made, it's found. I've written before about American Flatbread, a frozen pizza originally started by an organic foodie in Vermont and sold in supermarkets around the country. After blogging about them, I received an email from Clark, who owns Food Remembers, the West Coast version of the bakery/restaurant. He invited me to come by if I was ever in Los Alamos, a town 50 minutes north of Santa Barbara. Some people may think it's crazy to drive an hour to try some pizza, and though I believe that most of the time life's more about the journey than the destination, in this case, the destination makes the journey. The restaurant is on the main street at the edge of town (the town is only 1 mile long). A dog sits on the front porch, greeting customers. The place is only open two nights a week -- the rest of the time it's a bakery cranking out hordes of frozen pizza for distribution in 20 states west of the Mississippi. The first thing you notice when you enter the "dining room" is the open hearth oven in the center of the floor. A group of people assemble pizzas off to the side (Clark was in charge of assembly on this night) and smiling waitresses bring the custom-made pizzas, salads and deserts to the tables. I can't really explain how good the special heirloom tomato pizza tasted. It was a combination of flavors I have never had before. Same goes for the crisp salads. After 40 minutes, it started to get hot in the dining room, so they opened some large barn doors to the outside patio, letting the sun and a gentle breeze carry the smokey smell of the wood-burning oven into the air. The great thing about American Flatbread is that they don't disguise the main ingredients of the food with other tastes. It's food without distraction -- pizza without noise. The same was true with the desserts. Homemade Apple pie (1/4 of a pie) with organic ice cream, chocolate and angel food cake with berries. All amazing. So if you find yourself traveling an hour north of Santa Barbara on a Friday or Saturday night (or if you need to remember what food really tastes like and feel like a drive) stop by and see Clark. You'll wonder why you waited so long. - Thank you Lou. You can read more of Lou's blogs at http://watoosi.blogspot.com/.
Rob Davis, Dairy Manager at Lazy Acres Market in Santa Barbara, CA -"Simple, quick, and addictive. By the time you get it home and let the wine breath a little this pizza will be ready."
Rich Cundiff, Proprietor of Los
Olivos Grocery -"We've found if you sample Flatbreads, and get it
in people's mouth,they WILL buy it because of the taste and the quality of
the ingredients."
Jason Geirson, Marketing Specialist at Whole
Foods, La Jolla, CA - "The first thing I thought of when I tasted
this was, Wow! This is a really special product!"
Kim Grotewold, Buyer, Jensen's
Fine Foods, Blue Jay, CA - "Awesome product. The packaging stands
against all the other frozen pizzas."
Lauren Fox, Store Manager at Real
Foods Co., SF, CA - "Hugely popular. I personally think it is an
awesome product."
Emi Kodama, Frozen Buyer at Good
Food Store in Missoula, Montana "The demo was such a success! People
were running to other parts of the store to bring friends back to try Flatbread."
Krista Seffern, satisfied customer of Community Food Coop in Bellingham, WA, sent us this wonderful note - "Ohmigosh - you people have created a masterpiece. My two boys and I sampled some and turned our cart around and headed directly for the freezer case to pick up our own BOXES of Cheese and Herb Flatbread. Your pizza is the BEST my family has ever eaten and we will continue to make it a regular on our shopping list."
Deirdre Willoughby wrote us on May 25, 2005 and let us know: "I haven't enjoyed a pizza in years. Picked yours up out of curiosity at Whole Foods Market in Thousand Oaks,California and am delighted. Last time I had a pizza this good was in Athens from a street vendor at least 25 years ago. THANK YOU."
Judi Rosenthal and Peter D'Alena wrote us from Northern California on November 16 2004: Our hats and hearts and stomachs are off to you for producing such a wonderful product.
PIZZA POEM
April 14, 2005
This wonderful email came to us after Ben's parents and he had dinner in our weekend restaurant. Thanks Ben!
The notably highlight of our Spring break trip up the
coast was dinner at your restaurant. Here is the poem
our son, Ben Waldow, wrote for his middle school
English class assignmentAmerican Flatbread:
I pushed the doors open quickly
The cold air rushes into the American Flatbread
Pizza like no other is served there
The fire in the kiln
Jumping up and down
Flickers and dances
The pizzas cooked inside of it
Turn crisp and light brown
The smoke from the kiln rises from the chimney
Into the brisk night of spring
The pizzas arrived on silver platters
They are set upon the table with legs of metaal
The pizzas are decorated with foods from the spring
The meats the tomatoes the mushrooms the greens
As I lift this cheese-covered creation into my mouth
The sauce burns my tongue slightly
The burn means nothing as the slice returned
By biting in a new door of flavors rushed to my mouth
The spice of the pepper the pepperoni
The organic taste of basil and oregeno
The seasoned mozzarella
All flooding in at once
Later
The pizza finished
A stomach full
Yet the taste lingers on
EASY, CONVENIENT, AND COST EFFECTIVE
American Flatbread is the "Consumer Nominated Hit" on Supermarket Guru.
On the July 13, 2005 Supermarket Guru web-site here’s what Stefanie H. from Newport Beach, California had to say about Flatbread. “While I am a self-professed health nut, I still love pizza. I’ve finally found a delicious and convenient pizza without the preservatives and processed ingredients. Actually, one can even pronounce all of the items on the label! The American Flatbread Pizzas, in my health food store (Mother's Market in Irvine, California) are easy, convenient and cost-effective. Most of all, they are a fabulous alternative to delivery and take less time to prepare.” Retails for $6.95. Thanks Stefanie!
.
DELECTABLY CRISP
Wendy Buxton wrote us on February 14, 2005 and told us: I saw the testimony from San Francisco, and wanted to add ours: We purchased 6 Flatbreads and shared two of them with friends in Sacramento. Cooked directly on the oven rack, they come out delectably crispy, but not hard. Our friends were very impressed, and now know that they can purchase them at Taylor’s Market on Freeport Blvd
BUSINESS WEEK
March 14, 2005
All the lovin' AT Whole Foods left me feeling good. So did the '70s sounds (Carole King, Brothers Johnson) instead of Muzak; the meats, seafood, and produce (gorgeous berries; nine kinds of peppers); the helpful, smiling clerks; the choice of frozen pizzas (a 9.1-ounce American Flatbread All Natural Pizza Baked in a Primitive Wood-Fired Earthen Oven Organic Tomato and Three-Cheese pizza for $6.79)
USA TODAY
February 22, 2005
A pie-in-the-sky quest ends in a slice of heaven. A noteworthy exception in frozen pizza is American Flatbread.
SAN LUIS OBISPO TRIBUNE
November 17, 2004
Frozen pizza can often leave a bit to be desired; Not so with American Flatbreads.
SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER
October 13, 2004
Wood-fired and frozen? Not all frozen pizzas are created alike.
SANTA MARIA TIMES
September 29, 2004
It’s About Time! Great food. Great wine. A focused and well-reasoned wine list with very reasonable prices. I’m talking about American Flatbread in Los Alamos. Wake me up. Is this a dream?
SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT
September 23, 2004
It sounds like the lost Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead album: American Flatbread. But that's not entirely coincidental. Begun in the hippie-coddling New England environs of Vermont, American Flatbread is very much the Ben & Jerry's of pizza, which is to say delicious.
SANTA BARBARA REPORTER
July 29, 2004
Slice it up: This is one flatbread that rises to the occasion.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
July 21, 2004
The rustic pizzas taste fresh and savory, with a crisp crust to match.
SANTA MARIA SUN
June 10, 2004
Flatbread reaches new heights. Local bakers fire up taste and nourishment...
CHEFS A' FIELD
Culinary adventures that begin on the farm. Profile of American Flatbread and Lareau Farm will air on Public Television Summer 2004.
EPICURIOUS
Family-Friendly …We'll also head up to Vermont and visit the folks at American Flatbread, where eating well is a family mission of love.
ORGANIC STYLE
Taste Test: Frozen Pizza High in calcium and protein, frozen pizza is one of the smartest fast-food options for last-minute meals. Our panel of food experts (which included chefs, foodies, and our pickiest friends) tasted 17 organic, natural, and healthy varieties. These are our top five favorites. — MONICA FORRESTALL
1. AMERICAN FLATBREAD
Organic Tomato Sauce and Three Cheese
15 ounces, $10
HOW IT TASTES delicious — wonderfully chewy crust, well-seasoned sauce, and fresh toppings. By far the most expensive, but worth it.
WHATS IN EACH SLICE 60% organic ingredients, including a crust made of 100% organically grown wheat. 320 calories; 110 from fat. 660 mg sodium.
GOURMET
July 2003
At night, the American Flatbread factory in Waitsfield, Vermont, turns into a restaurant.
Frozen, and Fantastic
Back in 1985, when he built a wood-burning oven out of uncut fieldstone and clay from the nearby Mad River, George Schenk never imagined he'd one day be using it to fire up some 1,000 pizzas a day. Today, the oven dominates the 19th-century post-and-beam headquarters of his American Flatbread company in Waitsfield, Vermont, where a small cadre of employees rolls out dough, adds cheese and other toppings (most of them organic and local), and then bakes, freezes, and ships the 9- and 12-inch pies to retail markets as far away as Florida and Wisconsin. Having sampled the pizzas ourselves, we wern't at all suprised to learn that Schenk, who also writes the messages on the back of every box ("Food remembers the acts of the hands and the heart"), just opened another American Flatbread bakery/restaurant (in Middlebury, Vermont) in order to meet demand. To find American Flatbread pizzas ($6 and $10) near you, call 802-496-8856 or visit americanflatbread.com. — Marialisa Calta
FOOD & WINE
pizza pilgrimage
People are willing to endure three-hour waits for American Flatbread's pizzas, though the folksy manifestos lining the walls are also part of its charm.
CAN ANY PIZZA POSSIBLY JUSTIFY A SEVEN-HOUR DRIVE? ON A WEEKEND TOUR OF VERMONT'S MAD RIVER VALLEY, A TRAVELER LEARNS THE ANSWER IS YES. — Salma Abdelnour, Photographs by Quentin Bacon
NEW YORK TIMES
2001
"By far the best frozen pizza money can buy."
