A Hardcore Passion for Pizza

What does pizza and punk have in common? Maybe more than you think! Both can be cheap and fast, but also contain the potential to have lots of substance. There’s attention to the ingredients. It seems simple, but all put together, it can be something powerful and moving. And tasty… depending on what punk shows you go to. Is there more to this connection? Do people who have an affinity for aggressive music simply melt when it comes to a solid pie? Does the round shape of a pizza somehow trigger the desire to circle pit? What’s the connection between DIY and pizza by the slice?

These are just some of the many questions I asked my close friend, Travis Farmer, proud owner of the new Ventura pizza joint Back Bench Pizza. From front man to two epic hardcore punk bands to head pizza man, Travis is bringing his love for hand-crafted, artisanal pizzas to the people!

Before really getting into the kneady gritty of Back Bench, I wanted to reminisce with Trav about his background and all the stops along the way – big and small – that led him to slinging slices on a shop that faces Ventura’s Main Street.

Full disclosure, Travis and I go way back. We went to the same shows, knew the same people, became friends, and he even eventually moved into the garage turned pack-in-as-many-people-as-you-can bedroom that was part of a foreclosed home that a group of us were living in rent-free called the “Hopeless House.” Yes, we were very dramatic! But that’s a story for another time…

Back to Trav! What were some of his earliest kitchen jobs? He started out as a baker’s assistant at Hennings Cake Boutique, a bakery nestled next to Savoy. He made smoothies at Blenders in Montecito. He worked as a chocolatier at Twenty-Four Blackbirds, their decadent chocolates always on stock at Handlebar Coffee Roasters, where I worked at the time. And then what?

Travis took a 10-year hardcore hiatus to focus on making and playing music. With his bands Minus and Fell to Low, Travis traversed all over the U.S. and Europe, screaming into the smiling faces of the eager youth. And when he got back, what was his plan of pizza action? 

“Out of necessity I started baking bread and making pizza because I was just poor, and I wanted to learn how to do it. And it cost a dollar to make a loaf of bread. Part of the reason I started working kitchens again is because when I started as a home baker making bread and pizza, I realized I wanted to do this. I wanted to have a tiny pizzeria.”

So he started at the bottom and built his way up. Kinda like a pizza! 

He was hired as a baker and “general kitchen guy” at Handlebar’s kitchen on De La Vina. The thing was, he hadn’t worked in a kitchen in a long time. The head chef at the time, the take-no-prisoners Sandra Adu Zelli – a highly accomplished chef that’s worked with the likes of Bea Vo, Tom Kerridge, Jun Tanaka, and Yotam Ottolenghi, and now is the chef owner of Gipsy Hill Bakery – totally put him to work. Travis puts it slightly different. 

“I came into a high-volume café and got the *expletive* kicked out of me. I caught on a little slower than anybody would’ve liked.”

And it’s here that the name of his pizza spot came to be. 

“That’s where Back Bench comes from. Working at Handlebar, the kitchen is like eight feet wide, and I’m a big dude. There’s four to six people in there, and I would be in the way. And there were tables set up at the back of the coffee shop behind the roaster. So Sandra would say, ‘Travis you have to go work at the back bench.’ And that’s where I rolled pastries and shaped dough.”

It was under the tutelage of the ever-patient Sandra that he got better at the fundamentals. Sure, he was the bottom of the barrel, but he was making doughnuts, pastries, and more importantly, he became the dough guy. Which really, was his ultimate dream.

As his stint at Handlebar came to a close, Sandra threw him a solid and introduced him to Rachel Greenspan and Brendan Smith, owners of Bettina, who were about to transition from doing catering and pop-ups to opening their highly popular restaurant on Coast Village Road.

This turned out to be a big step up, despite initially thinking otherwise. Reality check! Handlebar was a busy kitchen, but this was a totally different environment. If we’re thinking in pizza terms, it went from personal size to extra large. The stakes were higher. After all, it’s a restaurant that in 2021, won the Michelin Bib Gourmand Award.

“I was feeling pretty good about my general skillset and work ethic, and then I was just thrown into the meat grinder again. It was brutal for the first part of it. You have to deal with your own ego. I thought I was good at this, and I’m okay at best. And I had to just learn this whole other skillset.”

But for two years, Travis kneaded and rolled and baked. “I was doing sourdough loaves, all the focaccia, and pizza dough. And I was given leeway to experiment with specialty loaves.”

And then the pandemic hit. What was that like?

“We were busier than ever when everything shut down. Because with pizza you can just come grab a box and go. When the dining room closed, we were making more food than ever. But there was the general stress of making more food, and also the outside stress of what’s going to happen in the world. Is this a societal collapse moment?”

On the brink of the end of the world and he’s stuck making pizza dough. Go out doing what you love, as they say!

And then he quit. In the middle of the pandemic. Travis, what were you thinking??? What were even you doing???

“I moved to Ventura, and I was sitting at home playing video games with you.”

Oh, right. Haha, well… Remember readers, this was during the pandemic! Travis, uh, please continue.

“But then I had to do something. I had a little bit of money, so I decided to make pizza out of the house. I got a Cottage Food permit from the City of Ventura.”

“I was inspired by Side Pie in Altadena and Quarter Sheets in Los Angeles. A lot of people were furloughed from the food industry and had the same thought process I did. People wanted to do stuff. And there was a big wave of people doing stuff out of their houses. And I was like, ‘Yeah I could do that.’”

And just like that, Travis started Back Bench out of his home kitchen. Making pizzas on Saturday and bread on Sundays. All you had to do was reserve a slot online and he would crank out as many pizzas as he could from his apartment. He passed pizzas out his front window, which was surrounded by Christmas lights to let everyone know where to snag the cheesy, gooey goodness.

“It started with just friends on Instagram. Then friends of friends. Then neighbors started looking out the window and would be like ‘Are you selling pizza?’ Then I had people totally disconnected from me that would order every week.”

All the while his home pizza operation was firing off, Travis wandered around Ventura looking for empty places, imagining something bigger for Back Bench. Then Travis found his spot. Right on Main Street, near the movie theater. A prime location.

Unlike a lot of restaurants, Travis is doing this independently. No investors. Which brings me back to our connection with punk, hardcore, and that DIY attitude. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three people associated with punk and hardcore that have opened up pizza spots. I bring up my pizza/punk connection again, a connection I’m maybe a little too proud of.

Does doing everything yourself stem from that DIY punk mentality?

“Absolutely. From the beginning of every step, there’s a learning curve. The first time I booked a U.S. tour, I didn’t know what I was doing. We wanted to do it, so I called everybody I knew, and basically begged. Can we play in your basement or in whatever VFW? Can you make a show for us? When it came to printing merch, we just had to learn how to do that part. And when it came to the record label – I put five records out – they were all various levels of disaster. Because I was just guessing at what to do. And it’s been a little bit of the same with this.”

But there’s a fulfillment that comes with that, right? With being a part of every process, of having your fingerprints all over everything. Travis agrees.

“I’m really interested in the process of learning all this stuff. It’s worth the pain for me to then have them be my own. This could be a lot easier. I know people who own restaurant groups. I could have an investor. But I’m interested in this place being mine, and doing it the way I want to do it.”

I ask him with all that time on the road, if he was thinking about opening up his own shop. Instead of counting Minor Threat’s black sheep to help him fall asleep in the tour van, did he dream of selling pizza slices?

“Yeah, definitely. The first time I went on tour we went to this place called Brothers in Staten Island. And I was like, ‘Oh, it really is good in New York. I can just do that!’”

That takes us to more of his pizza inspirations. What were some pizza places that got his oven going? Men and women of the dough that have steered him to the sauce?

“Chris Bianco [chef-owner of Pizzeria Bianco]. That’s a guy who loves making food, he loves feeding people, and making some of the best pizza in the world. And he started in Phoenix, Arizona, of all places.”

Which for Travis is inspiring because it shows that you don’t have to be in New York or New Jersey to have some seriously tasty ‘za. In fact, some of the best pizza he’s had is in California, like at Apollonia’s Pizzeria in Los Angeles.

He goes on. “One of my main inspirations is this guy Joe Beddia in Philly who made 40 pies a day in a walk-up hole in the wall
in Fishtown.”

At the time, Pizzeria Beddia was essentially a one-man band only serving full pies. No chairs, no way to call to order, no delivery, and you had to line up hours in advance to have a chance to get one of his coveted pizzas.

“I tried to go. They start serving at, I think, 4 pm and I showed up at 3:30pm and there were 100 people in line trying to get pizza. If your product is good and people want to buy it, you can make a little living.”

Beddia’s pizzeria reminded Travis it really can be quality over quantity. So is that what he’s going to do? Is he going to have a similar concept?

“It’s go until I sell out.” Travis plans to start with 60 pizzas a day, some for slices, some for whole pies. Once they’re out, they’re done. Easy as that.

According to Travis, 60 pies a day is nothing compared to a place like Bettina, where they would do something like 300-500 pies a day. Now, that’s a whole lotta dough!

His collaboration with the vegan spot Rascal’s was an experiment in this type of pizza model. Owner of Rascal’s, Dalan Moreno, opened his spot to collab with Travis, and the duo got to doughing.

“The pop-up with Rascal’s was insane. That was another thing that pushed me in this direction. That was the most pizza I’ve made in a night. We did 40, and we sold out in 15 minutes. It was three hours of me making pizza, with Dal helping. It went really well. People were really understanding. They were waiting for two hours. I didn’t get to go look, but some people said 50 to 100 people got turned away.”

And that was the same successful story for his follow-up pop-ups at The Dutchess, with the help of pastry aficionado Kelsey Brito, head baker at that delicious and amazing Ojai restaurant. (Sidenote: the vegan crème brûlée they once served for dessert nearly brought me to tears.) Travis and crew slung out pizza slices as fast as humanly possible. It was evident: people want his slices.

To make pizzas the way Travis wants to, he says you have to be a little delusional. You have to lie to yourself that you can do it, and then eventually, it just happens.

“I don’t have any illusions about being a pizza mogul. I want to have a life for myself that is not work-centric. I don’t believe your job has to be the bulk of your identity. My goal with this is I want to have a life outside of this place. I want to be comfortable, and I want to make the people that work with me have a dignified, comfortable work-life balance.”

That’s something surely every worker and aspiring pizza person wants to hear.

But my mind is still on the Rascal’s/Back Bench collaboration. I’ve been waiting for this moment. I ask him, on the record, will Back Bench Pizza always have a vegan option?

“Yes.”

And with that, Travis just stole a pizza my heart.

Back Bench Pizza is located at 563 East Main Street and is open from 11 am – 8 pm.