His eyes intent, his body hunched into a sprinter’s stance, Ed Behlmann flips and folds the flat piece of cardboard into a pizza box. Although the entire process takes less than half a minute, he’s not happy. “Did you see how I hesitated right there at the corner of the box?” he says. “You’ve got to do it in the least amount of moves. You have to be able to fold the sides and top and flip it over all in one motion.” Behlmann’s best pizza-box-folding time is 25 seconds, but he will have to shave off 2 seconds if he wants to beat last year’s winner of the Fastest Pizza Box Folding contest at the World Pizza Games in Las Vegas. We quizzed Behlmann, owner of 7 West Pizzeria & Pub in Lafayette, before he heads off to the Pizza Games and the International Pizza Expo March 20-22. – Vicky Uhland
Is this your first trip to the Pizza Games and Expo? I’ve been to the Expo trade show before when I owned some Pizza Pro franchises in Missouri in the 1990s, but this is my first time as a contestant. It’s a huge show. Tens of thousands of people go, and the show floor is as big as four football fields.
How did you get so good at pizza-box folding? I’ve been working in pizzerias since I was 16, starting at Shakey’s Pizza at 104th and I-25, so I’ve folded a lot of boxes in my life. I’d have box-folding contests wherever I worked, and nobody could beat me. I get all these 16-year-olds who think they’re going to be hot, but I’ll be finished with my box and they’re only halfway done with theirs.
You’re also one of 50 people who will be entering a pizza in the Pizza Expo’s International Pizza challenge. Tell us about that. My pizza is called the 7 West White Pizza Supreme. It has a thin crust with an oil and garlic base, chicken, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and a four-cheese blend of mozzarella, provolone, white cheddar and Swiss.
Sounds delicious. How did you come up with that concoction? It has to look good, because 30 points out of 100 is on presentation, and I think the artichokes and the sun-dried tomatoes and the olives look good together. And it has to be something that’s on your menu, and I had a lot of customers asking for a white pizza, so I thought I’d try it. They grade you on marketing too, and whether someone would buy it.
What do you get if you win? You get $2,000 and a big trophy, plus some winners have gone on (the Food Network). For box folding, there are medals for first, second and third place, plus first place gets $1,000. Hopefully I’ll have a big announcement in a couple weeks about how I won.
How cool to get a medal. Yeah, but the $1,000 would be better.
