EVO Pizzeria — short for Extra Virgin Oven — began as a mobile wood-fired pizza trailer in 2005, built by Matt McIntosh and Ricky Hacker after the two met working in the kitchen at FIG in downtown Charleston. The catering venture found enough of a following that the pair opened a brick-and-mortar shop on East Montague Avenue in North Charleston in 2007, in what was then an up-and-coming Park Circle.
McIntosh trained as a pastry chef at Blossom Cafe and later worked banquets at McCrady's before becoming head artisan baker at Normandy Farms, where he studied wood-fired oven building under Alan Scott. Hacker came up through Delaware kitchens and the Culinary Institute of America before landing as sous chef at FIG. Both bring that background to EVO's wood-fired pizzas.
The restaurant sources ingredients from a roster of regional farms and purveyors — including Kurios Farms, Split Creek Farms, Keegan-Filion Farm, and Ambrose Farms — whose names are displayed above the oven inside the restaurant.
McIntosh trained as a pastry chef at Blossom Cafe and later worked banquets at McCrady's before becoming head artisan baker at Normandy Farms, where he studied wood-fired oven building under Alan Scott. Hacker came up through Delaware kitchens and the Culinary Institute of America before landing as sous chef at FIG. Both bring that background to EVO's wood-fired pizzas.
The restaurant sources ingredients from a roster of regional farms and purveyors — including Kurios Farms, Split Creek Farms, Keegan-Filion Farm, and Ambrose Farms — whose names are displayed above the oven inside the restaurant.