Rick Johnson’s tasty pursuits have come to fruition.

 

“I’ve always had a huge passion for pizza and cooking in general,” Rick Johnson said during the ribbon-cutting for his A Slice of New York Squared WV food truck in the lot of Bridgeport Express Care.

 

Rick Johnson’s career in athletics opened the door for this pursuit.

 

“I’ve coached swimming and golf for multiple years on different levels. I had a young lady that played golf for me at Fairmont State and her dad had a pizza place,” Rick Johnson said. “We would share our passion back and forth. She became my assistant coach last year and we continued to talk more.”

 

“The community has been so supportive,” Dee Johnson, who helps her husband manage the truck and also handles social media, said. “It took off a lot faster than we ever dreamed. We’ve only been open 5 or 6 weeks and we’re getting calls, texts, emails and bookings constantly.”

 

Rick and Dee’s daughter Marra was also on that team and graduated this year.

 

“I just felt like it was time for me to end that (coaching) part of my life and open this,” Rick Johnson, a BHS graduate, said. “We worked some things out and now we have this pizza truck.”

 

The New York in the name implies a deeper-dish pizza, “but it’s not just a normal pizza. IT’s a sourdough,” Rick Johnson said. “I’ve had a lot of people compliment the pizza, but, as a diabetic, the ones that meant the most are the comments we’ve had on eating the pizza and not having their sugar raise. There’s a healthier option for pizza.”

 

Rick Johnson said the truck is licensed in Bridgeport, Clarksburg, Fairmont, Morgantown and Jane Lew and will also pop up in Shinnston.

 

“Starting at the end of the summer, we thought we might have more of a stop-and-go season, but it’s been surprising how much we’ve still been busy in these fall months with a lot of fairs and festivals,” Dee Johnson said. “We’ve got Christmas parties booked. We’re already booking some private events, like weddings, for next spring. The fact that we’re mobile and can go anywhere is what’s so special about this product, but we couldn’t do this without the support of the community.”