New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Pau Pau’s Pizza Cones food truck puts a twist on CT’s favorite food
Pizza-crazed Connecticut is home to some of the country’s best pies. Now a new food truck is turning that tradition on its head — and into a cone.
Pau Pau’s Pizza Cones, a new food truck that’s been making the rounds in Fairfield and Litchfield counties, is serving pizza in a portable cone format. Dough is rolled into a cone shape, parcooked and customized with toppings, then baked in an oven for the ideal melty, cheesy finish.
The new food truck, run by business partners Ben Quick and Robert Layer, started serving the innovative pizza item in early August out of a small refurbished bus.
Quick came to Connecticut from Ohio in 2020 to open the Norwalk location of Yard House, but he kept feeling the pull to launch his own food business, he said. His brother-in-law, who lives in the Philippines, sent him a video of pizza cones being made by a vendor in Japan.
“I loved the idea. I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’ve got to do that,’” Quick said. He kept thinking about the pizza cones as he worked for Yard House, and decided about six months ago to make it happen.
Connecting with now-business partner Layer, the two found a small bus (which, ironically, previously served as an ice cream truck, Quick said.) There was an initial delay for the proper equipment necessary to craft the cones, so Quick started out serving New York-style chopped cheese sandwiches. When the equipment arrived, he discontinued the sandwiches and started producing the pizza cones full time in early August.
Quick makes his own fresh pizza dough, which is then machine-formed into a cone shape and parcooked, getting it ready to load with cheese, sauce and toppings. He estimates the cones to be about the size of a rolled 7-inch pizza crust, he said.
The bready cones ($9 to $12) are available in classic cheese and pepperoni varieties, along with a meat lovers’ option (with pepperoni, sausage and bacon) and one with onions and peppers. Similar to a Drumstick ice cream treat, which has a chocolate “nugget” at the tip of the waffle cone, Pau Pau’s cones have cheese at the bottom, Quick said.
“When you get to the bottom, it’s just a nice gooey cheese,” he said. “Then above that, I get all my sauce in there, my toppings are all mixed throughout it.”
Pau Pau’s also offers a truffle cone with mushrooms, spinach and truffle oil, a nod to Quick’s background as a fine-dining chef, he said. the pizza cone,” he said. “I have a plan down the road of maybe doing a lobster one, getting some really unique things in there. I’m a chef and I love to create.”
Quick has notes for potential future menu items: a breakfast cone, one with poké, maybe even variations of the pizza dough like garlic bread or pretzel flavors. “The possibilities are endless,” he said.
Pau Pau’s has parked at venues like Norwalk’s Spacecat Brewing Co. and SONO 1420 American Craft Distillers, and introduced the truck to Stamford food lovers at the recent Hey Stamford! food festival in Mill River Park. The event was Pau Pau’s “first big break,” he said, and the truck turned out about 700 cones in two days.
The truck will be at the upcoming Goshen Fair over Labor Day weekend, Quick said, and then at the Norwalk Oyster Festival Sept. 9 to 11.
The business also has deep family ties. In addition to the initial inspiration from his brother-in-law, Quick named the truck for his wife, Paula, whose nickname is “Pau Pau.” Quick also bonded with partner Layer over a shared loss.
Layer and Quick’s brother, Ryan, served in the Navy together and were close friends, he explained. When Ryan died suddenly of a heart attack at age 31 in 2014,
Quick reached out to Layer to inform him of his friend’s death. Layer “immediately drove to Ohio” from Connecticut, he said, and the two men kept in touch in the following years.
When Quick moved to Connecticut in 2020, he connected with Layer again, which led to the business opportunity two years later. Quick believes his brother brought the two of them together, as Ryan had always supported his culinary career and urged him to one day open his own business, a bakery or food truck.
“I feel like everything’s meant to be,” Quick said. “I feel like Ryan brought us together for a reason, and Robert feels the same way. We’re doing this. That’s why I don’t think we’ll fail, because I feel like my brother is there keeping us moving.”