Pizza from farmers' markets to streets of east Ballard

Hours: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. daily, closed Tuesday

Address: 500 NW Market St.

Phone: 206-525-1813

Website: www.veracipizza.com

By Allison Espirtu

Traveling with their custom made wood fire pizza oven to farmers' markets from Ballard to as far as Mercer Island and in between, Marshall and Errin Jett owners and entrepreneurs of Veraci Pizza have decided to finally open a sit down pizzeria restaurant in Ballard.

Starting in 2004, making pizzas began as a hobby for the Jetts. They began experimenting with different ways of creating flat bread in their home for five years and came up with something they loved and wanted to share with the community.

Spending a lot of their early years in restaurants they took their creation and ended up cooking pizzas in the streets with the afterthought of someday owning their own restaurant.

At first they weren't too sure if people would like what they had to offer, but they traveled to farmers' markets all around the area and realized they had something when long lines of people started coming for their slices. Their pizzas became a hot commodity in the farmers' market world.

"People asked where our restaurant was and wanted us to get a restaurant, they basically were trying to talk us into getting one," said Marshall.

Thinking that their pizzas would only be a side job that they enjoyed as a pastime, the Jetts realized their popularity grew once they added on a catering service to their street vendor responsibilities.

"Catering has gone through the roof every year we have more and more people calling. It became a year round operation after two years," he said.

In 2006 the Jetts started to put more thought into investing in a restaurant because the demand for their pizzas was so great. They were making about 150 pizzas at the farmers' markets.

"Errin was a recruiter for the Peace Corp Northwest Regional office and I was a school teacher for second through fifth graders around Seattle. I left teaching because I personally couldn't do both. A food service business was so demanding. After a couple of years Errin and I became full time Veraci employees," said Marshall.

Finally, investing in a location at 500 N.W. Market St., the Jetts took the same farmers' market concept of creating pizzas in a wood fire oven and built one in their new restaurant.

"The restaurant was formerly a pizza establishment and prior to that a Domino's pizza," said Marshall. "We did some extensive remodeling and it now has seating and we created an open kitchen to recreate the farmer's market atmosphere."

Offering not just pizzas, the Jetts have added salads to the menu and offer homemade sorbetto and gelato.

"We've gotten a lot of community support after we opened the restaurant. We now have different things besides pizza and we're learning new things and rounding out what we're offering."

Veraci Pizza can still be found at farmers' markets around the city and they also offer catering to parties of 30 to 300 or more.

Allison Espiritu may be reached at 783-1244 or allisone@robinsonnews.com.