“Pizza is literally my whole life,” says Jeff Letey, Za Cart Pizza owner. 

It all started when Letey decided he couldn’t continue working as a landscaper, so he went back to the thing he loved: pizza. “I can make pizza for 20 hours straight, but after a few hours holding a wheelbarrow, my back gets tired.” Nestled away under the Hayward Student Living complex on 13th Avenue and Willamette Street, Za Cart has been serving high-quality pizza to hungry people since 2015. 

Now, after almost 16 years of running a food truck, Letey is making the move to a brick and mortar location at 930 Olive Street. At his new location, Letey wants to continue the cart’s history of community service through his philosophy of bartering and trade.

Letey says for years, he fought the idea of opening a brick and mortar, but with new food laws that require trucks to use a licensed commissary and his desire to expand his menu, it was finally time. (A licensed commissary is a commercial kitchen that serves as a base of operations for mobile food vendors.) Letey hopes for an official grand opening around Feb. 21. Letey says at his new location, he wants to include new items like hot dogs, house-made sodas, soups and salads. Letey will be partnering with Sling-In Weiner for the hot dogs. He also wants to bring back some classics he used to serve, like breakfast pizzas and ice cream sandwiches. 

Back when Letey was just getting started, he bought a 1975 travel trailer and retrofitted it with an oven and a prep area to start serving pies to industrial workers on 7th and Chambers. He says it took him around six months to finalize his recipe that so many Eugeneans today swear by. “I did it all by hand, grated all the cheese, made all the dough before we got machines,” Letey says. 

Letey’s pizza is inspired by the classic New York slice, with a few unique features. Letey’s slice is larger towards the crust, making it almost like a breadstick on the end. He also roasts his sauce, instead of it being fresh.

That all makes for a slice that leaves customers asking for another, even if they showed up with the intention to only get one. The menu at the food truck features a few choices: cheese, pepperoni and a vegan option. Sometimes, Za Cart has daily specials like Detroit pizza, Chicago style and more. 

Each slice and pizza is made in a Baker’s Pride Y-600 oven. Letey says he will have matching ovens at his brick and mortar location to ensure the flavor profile of his pie stays the same. He plans to keep the food truck open to work at events and festivals. 

For Letey, making a pizza goes beyond just putting the ingredients together. “People can taste love and you physically have to put consciousness and love into each pizza,” Letey says. “Food love is something people need.” He adds that now, more than ever, it’s important for people to eat food that isn’t processed and isn’t wrapped in plastic. Instead, Letey emphasizes that when someone buys a pizza from him, it’s a unique expression of his love. 

Because of the love that goes into his pizza, Letey stresses that his pizza is a commodity that can’t be corrupted. Because of that, he uses it as a tool to barter. “If I need something, I go to the smallest business and I try to trade with them,” he says. “The community building is the part that draws the personal passion to me.” Letey says he’s a Marxist, which is a political ideology of class struggle based on the theories of Karl Marx. 

One of the core principles of Marxist ideology is that the working class should hold political power and that a capitalist, market economy is ultimately detrimental to the working class. 

“They try to divide us, but it’s an economic struggle, a class struggle, not race, not genders, not culture,” Letey says. 

In line with his political ideologies, Letey says he tries his hardest to feed his community real, handmade food without exploiting them with steep prices. In fact, Letey has issued collectible coins and a “pizza dollar” which is used as an alternative currency to trade pizza for goods and services. “It’s held value better than the U.S. dollar over the last 10 years,” Letey says. “One of my biggest goals for one year was to pay my EWEB bill in pizza,” Letey says. 

Now, Letey says he wants to continue his journey of building community through pizza by making the move to his brick and mortar with his special building permit number: 420. “It’s a new, exciting chapter in my life,” he says. “The brick and mortar is scary, but also exciting.” 

Za Cart Pizza is at 12th and Willamette Street, open 4 pm to midnight Wednesday through Thursday, 4 pm to 2 am Fridays, noon to 2 am Saturdays and noon to 11 pm Sundays. The brick and mortar will be at 930 Olive Street. To order a pizza, call 541-514-3621.