Community Highlights: Meet Kris Karaian of Dough Drop Pizza

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kris Karaian

Hi Kris, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
It was Nov 2023, real estate business was at a decline, my wife was pregnant, I love pizza (but I can’t digest enriched flour) , so I said I’m going to create the best pizza I can to enjoy it awesome pizza people. With no previous experience I self taught myself through YouTube. Fast forward, It was September 11 week 2024 and I remember there was absolutely 0 demand for my pizza. I couldn’t get the word out about the mini pizza revolution I was starting (by creating Biga dough pizza without cutting absolutely any corners, from dough to DOP cheeses to organic toppings to DOP stamped tomatoes integrity of all the ingredients and process) . I literally know where every single ingredient comes from. I’m super deep in the pizza rabbit hole lol. On Dec 1 I connected with a content creator named RomsInsta , he tasted the pizza, loved it, believed in it, put a a video together and it went viral on IG. The rest is history. It was the perfect recipe for success with grassroots targeted marketing and an amazing health conscious product. The demand has only increased by the day taking my wait list to 2k+ ppl at the moment with over 90+120 day min wait time.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Lol none has been smooth, but I do believe God has my back. Self taught myself through the entire journey. It’s just all about being resilient, persistent and wanting it bad enough for your selfless reasons.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We make the best Italian Sourdough Neapolitan Pizza in Los Angeles using only the best ingredients that we can directly source from around the world. If it is not the best ingredient on the planet we do not use it! The tomatoes we use are the sweetest in the world grown on the volcanic soil at the southern tip of Mt Vesuvius.
Our Parmigiano Regiano and Pecorino Romano are aged to perfection and imported directly from the source with a DOP stamp , and our olive oil is single origin from Tuscany. We grow our own organic basil, and all our vegetable toppings are organic. Our meat toppings are of the highest quality, using the finest marbled Hot Capicola, and our pepperoni made by an Italian family in San Francisco for over a century. Our dough is exceptional, nothing like you’ve had at the ordinary pizza shop. It takes 3 days to make our Italian Sourdough, by first creating and fermenting an “Italian Mother” called Biga. The flour and yeast we use are imported from Italy, and the oven we cook on is from Italy as well. We even go the extra mile and cook on Biscotto; which is stone made from clay that is gathered from Mt Vesuvius. We take pride into making pizza the long way; using no sugars, bad oils, enriched flour, commercial yeast, or bad water. We are famous for our Hot Piggy Pizza. which is Pepperoni and Hot Capicola drizzled with Hot Honey. It turns the non meat eater into a meat eater; the flavors are to die for.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Never give up. You’ll always learn something new. Timing is everything, you don’t choose the timing of success. It will find you when the product is ready.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doughdroppizza?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==