In winter, the truck disappears.

And people assume I do too.

When the food truck is closed, when the ovens are cold, and the markets disappear, people think the work slows down — or stops entirely.

It doesn’t.

Winter is when the work changes shape.

And most of it doesn’t photograph well.

What Happens When a Food Truck Is Closed for Winter

A winter day looks like answering emails from catering clients and drawing up contracts for events months away. It looks like confirming brewery dates, updating calendars, and making sure nothing overlaps once the pace picks up again.

It looks like permits, accounting spreadsheets, shopping lists, and mixing schedules for future pizza residencies. Menus get tweaked, scrapped, rebuilt, and tweaked again.

It looks like writing a personal essay in the morning and promoting a Serpico’s Bread Co. post in the afternoon — and quietly wondering which one matters more in the long run.

Somewhere in there, I get blood drawn for my annual physical.
I study Italian.
I rehearse stories for the pizza residency, trying to make them informative and funny at the same time.

I move money around to manage cash flow.
And I still stress about money.

Lunch is usually eaten standing up. Often frozen schiacciata.

The Winter Work No One Sees

What people don’t see is the thinking.

Winter is when I’m planning two months ahead.
Four months ahead.
Two years ahead.

I’m refining details for a hands-on food journey through Southern Italy. Editing documentary notes. Texting collaborators. Fixing bugs on my website. Completing food safety modules. Sending emails to sell the last 12 tickets to a February pizza residency.

I’m running campaigns asking people to book us for spring weekends that technically don’t exist yet — but need to.

I research how to fix a broken oven.
Then how to fix the auger on my snow blower.
Then I pay some bills.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I check real estate listings in Charleston, South Carolina. Not because I’m moving tomorrow — but because imagining a future with stability helps me breathe.

I talk to my sons.

I fall down rabbit holes about fermentation, branding, and storytelling — often all at once.

I shoot content.
I don’t post it.

Stress, Planning, and the Off-Season

The off-season for a food truck owner isn’t calm.

It’s just quieter.

And quiet has a way of amplifying whatever you’re carrying.

I worry about money when I retire.
I worry about booking enough private parties for spring and summer.
I worry about finding good people to work with me this season.
I worry about my health — and whether my back will hold up.

There’s pressure to sell the residency beyond February. Pressure to stay organized. Pressure to manage creativity alongside spreadsheets and logistics.

I miss intimacy sometimes. With my partner. With another human being. Winter can feel isolating, and isolation sharpens things you normally outrun.

At the same time, winter is where ambition lives.

I think about optioning a recent essay for film.
I think about building a wine brand.
I think about the strange place I’m in — where people who knew me from entertainment talk about my reinvention, and people who know me from pizza are just discovering I was a storyteller first.

Some people have started asking me for life advice.

That still surprises me.

Building More Than Pizza

I’m not just building a food truck business.

And I’m not just “the pizza guy.”

Those who know my past see this chapter as reinvention. Those who know me from pizza are only now discovering that storytelling has always been part of what I do.

What I’m building is a brand — and a life — that isn’t dependent on one truck, one season, or one version of myself.

Winter is when I work alone the most. I like it more than people realize. I enjoy socializing, but solitude is where clarity comes from.

This is where the long-term work happens.

Why Winter Is When the Real Work Happens

What people experience in spring and summer — the events, the pizzas, the residencies, the travel — those are the visible results.

Winter is the infrastructure.

It’s where I’m building toward a balanced life with fewer financial worries. A life where I can call the shots on how I spend my time. A life with structure and stability, but also room to travel and explore.

So when people ask what I do all winter while the food truck is closed, this is the answer:

The oven is cold.

But this is when I decide who I’m becoming next.

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