Daily Inspiration: Meet Adonis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adonis.

Hi Adonis, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It started pretty personally, actually. I got into a motorcycle accident last year and ended up stepping away from my job, and around the same time my childhood best friend Jonny was in between things too. The timing just lined up.
We’d always talked about doing something together, so we decided to try a pizza pop-up and see what happened. It was really simple at first, but people connected with it, and we just kept building from there—one menu at a time.
Early on, a big part of it was wanting to build more than just a pop-up. We liked the idea of building a posse—a community of creatives around it. We also wanted it to be run and operated from the back of house with no filter—something a bit rugged, raw, and real. We’re not the most polished individuals, so we wanted to create something we were actually comfortable living in, that other people could still enjoy with us.
Now that’s really what it’s turned into. We operate more like a chef agency, but it’s still super collaborative. We have designers, artists, media people, and a lot of friends who’ve contributed along the way.
Now it’s grown into something bigger, but it still feels like we’re figuring it out as we go, which is kind of the whole point.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not really, no—but I don’t think we expected it to be. A lot of it has just been figuring things out as we go.
That said, we’re both long time industry and have spent about 12–13 years in kitchens, cutting our teeth at places like Mozza, Taco Maria, Felix, Angler, and Tartine. So we come from a pretty structured background and have had a lot of discipline instilled in us over the years.
The challenge has been taking all of that and applying it to something intentionally more loose and pop-up driven. Because it started so organically, we’ve had to learn how to build systems, handle volume, and scale without losing what made it special in the first place.
Honestly, the first several months were a bit of a nightmare—we were fully relying on personal savings just to keep it going until we were able to make enough to get by. It’s been a big sacrifice, but from the beginning we knew the most important thing was building the brand and hoping something would click. We’ve always kind of been okay with winging it.
But in a way, that tension between structure and chaos is part of what keeps it interesting for us.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We’re chefs, but what we’ve built is more of a pop-up and creative food project that started with pizza and evolved from there. Now it’s more collaborative—we work with other creatives and operate a bit like a food driven collective or agency.
We’re probably known for keeping things raw, simple, and unpolished. It’s always evolving, and nothing is too rigid.
What we’re most proud of is the community around it. It’s grown into something that includes a lot of friends and collaborators beyond just us.
I think what sets us apart is that we’ve never really tried to over-engineer it—we just kept building it in real time.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
I think the biggest takeaway for us has been learning to take ego out of it and just focus on creating for other people. At the end of the day, it’s actually pretty simple to make people happy—you just have to care about the experience and pay attention to what people enjoy. And if you can find joy in that most days, you’re already in a good place.
We’ve also realized we’re kind of in the social side of things just as much as the food side. There are a lot of easier ways to make a living, so if you’re going to do this, it really has to come from a genuine place of wanting to bring people together and create something they feel good being part of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Possecalifornia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/possecalifornia/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Image Credits
Aundre Dang
Garrett Barth