CODE meets Johnnie Tate and Nick Buckland, Yard Sale Pizza

As they prepare to open their seventh London site, this week we talk to the co-founders of Yard Sale Pizza Johnnie Tate and Nick Buckland. They tell us the story behind the brand, how they make themselves different from other pizza chains in London and their favourite pizza topping.

You’re about to open the seventh Yard Sale Pizza site on Balham High Street. How does that feel? 

Pretty great! Our second south of the river, so we’re really pleased to have been able to cross over from north / east London routes and continue to spread our wings further across London. There’s some brilliant independents in Balham that we’re really excited to be joining. 

Could you have imagined how the business would grow when you started out? 

Yes and no! We always wanted to grow the business but I certainty didn’t imagine what it would be like 7 years on. Running the business is hugely challenging but seeing it grow is very satisfying.   

Any plans to move outside the capital? 

Not just yet! We’ve got our eyes firmly set on spreading our dough in London for now. 

Tell us a bit more about the story behind Yard Sale and how you got started.  

It all began 7 years ago in our back yard, after building our own pizza oven & arranging some pizza supper clubs for friends & family, we then went onto to open our Clapton shop in 2014. 7 years and now 7 shops later, we’d consider ourselves one of London’s ultimate delivery pizza. 

There are quite a few pizza restaurants in London. How do you make yourself different? 

Our in-house delivery service in a key part of our brand, we built this into the business back in 2014 & now we don’t have to work with the likes Deliveroo etc. It basically means we’ve got our eyes on the pizza from dough to door.  We’ve also done pretty epic events & collaborations over the years, from Macaulay Caulkin opening our first shop, to our latest best-selling cheeseburger with the guys at Four Legs. 

How have you coped with the last year?

Luckily for us as our delivery service was in-house, so we didn’t have to make any changes. In the past year we’ve just focused on streamlining our menu & operations so we could provide the best pizza delivery going. 

And how has it been preparing to reopen? How has the mood been amongst guests? 

We are yet to reopen our dine-in at our shops, we’ve got a mix of different set ups so we’re going to sit tight until things have settled before making any further changes to the business. At the moment we are just focusing on our takeout and delivery trade. 

You’ve launched a clever ‘win pizza for your street’ campaign. Tell us more about that.  

We are giving one street in our new area the chance to win pizza for every single house on that street. Local residents just need to nominate their street and the street with the most nominations on 9^th May will win a golden voucher for every house, & we’ll also have a prize for the runners up! 

In general, have you been happy to see how hospitality has worked to help so many people and lift spirits during the past year? 

It’s been amazing to see everyone get stuck in and do what they can, in particularly tricky times for themselves too.  

Three quick fire questions to end. Where can you find the best pizza in the world (other than Yard Sale)? 

There is a pizzeria an hour or so outside of Naples called Pepe in Grani. We got taken there on a guided tour and it’s widely regarded as the best pizzeria in the world … but is a mission to get to! 

What are the best and worst pizza toppings? 

You can’t be classic pepperoni… and worst, well we’ve seen a few over the years! 

And the most popular? 

None! Our classic Margherita is our best seller… very closely followed by our Holy Pepperoni (topped with double pep & nduja). 

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