SAN ANTONIO — A new pizzeria in the Hill Country is serving up some delicious slices while also bringing iconic movies to life.
Darkside Brick Oven Pizza is a retro-inspired restaurant that recently opened in Boerne, Texas.
Most people know owner Michael Hawes as an avid Star Wars collector – with a private 5,000 square foot gallery at home. His lovely wife Denise is also a collector of Barbies.
“We both love pizza, and we thought ‘wouldn’t it be great to be able to combine the two?’ And be able to have people come in and just have that fantastic dining experience and be taken back to a time where things were innocent,” Michael said.
The creation of the restaurant took a little over 3 years from concept to execution. Michael worked with various artists around the world to create amazing prop replicas built specifically for Darkside along with additions from his personal collections.
“Seeing the expressions on all the people that come in here that are remembering when. That’s why I built this place for all these people to come in and see all these old toys they might’ve played with as a kid,” Michael said.
Michael and Denise scoured the world visiting and tasting various recipes at pizzerias to find a cuisine that would fit their restaurant.
"At the end of the day we are very very happy with the recipes so I’m really excited,” he said.
Their crust is handmade, fermented for a few days to give their pies a thinner crust. The pizzas are then cooked in an woodfire brick oven pizza on a rotisserie – to ensure the pies are cooked evenly.
“There’s a lot of labor that goes into each pie that we make,” Michael said.
Their top seller is a close match between two specialty pizzas: Meat Lovers and BBQ Chicken.
Their meat lovers pizza comes with veal meatballs, Italian sausage, pepperoni and a couple other special ingredients while the barbeque chicken recipe comes from Michael’s mom - thanks to his wife Denise who was gifted the recipe before Michael’s mom passed away.
“She’s watching over it and every time we sell that pizza I know ‘Hey you never though in a million years we’d be using your barbeque sauce for our awesome pizzas’ so it’s worked out really good,” Michael said.
Michael dedicated the opening of the restaurant to his mother in March.
“It’s keeping her legacy alive. You know she was both my mom and dad and I know she’s watching over and seeing what we’ve done and just [I] couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.
Another fan favorite is their barbeque brisket pizza. The brisket is picked fresh off the pit every week and is never frozen. The brisket comes from a local vendor and the sauce is made by his wife - who won’t even let the cooks see the recipe.
“It’s a unique pizza. Not very many people go through the trouble of making it. It’s not easy having brisket come in so that was a tough one but we went over leaps and bounds to make sure we finally found the right brisket, the right barbeque sauce and of course the cheese that we use and then of course our homemade dough,” Michael said.
Michael’s personal favorite is the margherita made with basil, garlic, olive oil, and fresh tomatoes. He recommends this pie with a glass of red wine – which Darkside now carries.
The Darkside House wine is a Cabernet that sells for $35 or by the glass.
“Being able to have my own wine is something I wanted for a really long time,” Michael said.
They also have red and white sangria - perfect for the summertime.
So, go ahead and try a slice from the past at Darkside Brick Oven Pizza located at 25 Truss Drive, Boerne, TX 78006.
Click here for more about the retro-inspired restaurant.
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