It’s three hours before opening at Birdie’s Pizza on North 13th Street in Philomath and owners Scott Willcockson, Jeremiah Mulder and Jesse Durocher are busy getting ready for service. In the moment, Willcockson separates spinach leaves from stems, Mulder slices mozzarella and Durocher preps the dough.
After opening about a month ago in the space formerly occupied by Sunrise Sourdough Bakery, customers have been filing in to enjoy New York-style or Detroit-style pizza — both entire pies or by the slice.
“We are very grateful to the community because it’s been a really awesome, warm introduction,” Willcockson said. “I feel good about feeling like we are contributing to the community and that was a goal. That’s my takeaway so far.”
The three men know each other well through their time working dinner service at Gathering Together Farm. Said Mulder, “We’re all used to working with each other so it’s a continuation of that.”
The move to establish the business at 128 N. 13th St., moved forward in quick fashion when the location became available to rent.
“It just kind of aligned with this spot opening up and having the ability to get this going in this space,” Durocher said. “It was kind of like the unicorn in a way because it was already a bakery … and the oven and the mixer and a lot of the equipment was already in place here. So we didn’t have to do a whole lot of retrofitting to get it up to snuff.”
The fortunate find led to the business taking over the licensing from the previous business and Birdie’s Pizza opened its doors March 12.
“We had a meeting and figured out what our skillsets are — we all know what we’re able to do and as time has progressed with the business, we’ve settled into the positions that we feel most comfortable with,” Durocher said. “It’s working out really well.”
As mentioned, Birdie’s Pizza offers both New York-style pizza with the thin, foldable crusts and Detroit-style pizza out of a rectangular metal pan with a fluffy center and ingredients to the edge.
“We do almost exactly traditional New York style except for a couple of changes that we did to make it work for us,” Durocher said. “Essentially, it’s an 18-inch thin, hand-tossed and minimally topped so that it doesn’t overload with a lot of moisture … you want that kind of crunch when you fold the slice in half.”
The Detroit-style pizza is similar to Sicilian style, although it’s cooked in deeper pans.
“What we do with the Detroits is we fill all the toppings — the cheese and all the ingredients — all the way to the very edge,” said Durocher, who knows what he’s talking about since he grew up in Detroit. “So it bakes in the oven … the cheese will melt and go down the edges of the pan and create like the classic kind of chewy, carmelized cheese edge — it’s like the best part of the pizza. The corners and edge parts of the pizza are always everybody’s favorites.”
Birdie’s Pizza makes cold fermentation dough, which allows it to rise slowly in refrigeration over multiple days. As such, the pizza chefs are limited to roughly 50 to 60 New York-style pizzas and 40 or so Detroit-style pizzas in a single day.
“If we had more refrigerator space or a walk-in cooler, we could do quite a bit more pizza in a day,” Durocher said. “But we like what we are doing right now because we’re not killing ourselves. And we value that.”
Birdie’s will always have its go-to pizza on the menu — cheese and pepperoni serving as examples — but some ingredients on certain pies change with the seasons. The business sources local and organic ingredients when possible.
“It’s very farm driven,” Durocher said when asked how they came up with the menu. “So we work off of what’s available locally and what’s in season and what’s nicest first — and then we fill in the blanks with the pizza standards.”
As a result, folks might encounter a wide variety of tastes throughout the year.
“Probably every two or three weeks, maybe we’ll change things up — bring a new veg special on. … As different mushrooms come in, we’ll probably bring on like, wild foraged mushroom pizzas and things like that.”
A lot of work has gone into the sauce.
“We did a lot of recipe development leading up to the open,” Durocher said. “As far as condiments or sauces or pizza sauce, everything that goes on the pizza we make from scratch. That was a conscious choice — we wanted to make things the way that we wanted to make them and not go the route of buying premade stuff.”
Other pizza places already established in Philomath didn’t keep the three owners from making the decision to open. They’re hoping that the community has a taste for what they believe is a high-quality product from the dough to the sauce to the toppings.
“We’re using high-quality ingredients — and that’s not necessarily better than anybody else, it’s just different from what the other places are doing,” Willcockson said. “Hearing from other people … they wanted something like a little more of what you would find in a bigger city. You know, something that uses higher-quality ingredients, maybe takes a little more time and care that goes into it. I think people are responding and it’s proving that it’s working.”
A gluten-free option is available for the Detroit-style pizza. Birdie’s also has a couple of salad options and soft drinks available. In addition to the three co-owners, the business also employs three part-timers.
Birdie’s Pizza is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 4-9 p.m., or until the pizza sells out. Pizza can be ordered through Birdie’s website or by calling 541-829-5207.
Thanks for writing this awesome article Brad! These fellas are really cooking up something special.