Stone & Fire Pizza truck heats up York Beach: 'Whole other level of flavor'

YORK, Maine — A York family is bringing a new offering of pizza to southern Maine – served from the flames of a brick oven on wheels.

Stone & Fire Pizza’s food truck has been making pizza since 2016 in southern New Hampshire, but never north of the state line in Maine. When the business’s owner decided to sell last year, he turned it over to his longtime friends in York, the Spauldings.

Now, the Spauldings are bringing Stone & Fire Pizza to locations all around southern Maine and Seacoast New Hampshire, including occasional stops at Short Sands Beach. The truck will be at York Beach Beer Company’s Spring Fling Market April 20 from 12 to 4 p.m., selling pizzas until they run out. They are also booked for York’s Festival of Fostering Trees Dec. 1.

“We’re not trying to be anything more than just really great mobile pizza,” Kate Spaulding said.

Union Bluff Hotel expansion: Owners seek to add 48 new rooms, parking garage

York native takes over Stone & Fire Pizza

Spaulding has lived in York her entire life. She said you could call her a native, though she was born in Portsmouth because there was no birthing center in York at the time.

“You can get real technical,” Spaulding said. “But the house I grew up in, my dad lived in since he was 2.”

Spaulding said she still lives in that house, now with her husband Jeff and their son Ned. Jeff is a lineman for an electrical company, while Spaulding has long worked for her parents’ boarding kennel business.

Last year, their friend Matt Galambos was considering selling his successful brick oven pizza business on wheels. He launched Stone & Fire Pizza in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and eventually moved further west.

The business was a success in that part of the Granite State and even made some visits to the Seacoast, according to Galambos. He also offered pizza-making classes on how to get the dough just right.

“People loved it. It was an experience,” Galambos said. “Being able to watch it being cooked right in front of your eyes.”

Galambos wanted to focus on other parts of his life, so he offered to sell the business to the Spauldings. He went to college with Spaulding’s husband at the University of Maine in Orono. Spaulding also took pizza-making classes Galambos offered via Zoom during the pandemic.

“She already had my pizza recipes,” Galambos said.

Noise remains issue: York pickleball club stalled on plans to expand

Spauldings ready to take pizza to the next level

The Spauldings took over Stone & Fire Pizza in the fall and have been ramping up for their first season.

With the help of her son and husband, Spaulding said she is taking on Stone & Fire’s operation full-time with a schedule this year that also includes stops at Vinegar Hill Music Theatre in Arundel and the Aug. 3 Fife and Drum Muster at Fort McClary in Kittery.

Stone & Fire opened their season March 30 at Eldredge Lumber and Hardware’s fundraiser for the York Boy Scouts summer camp. They will next be at the roller derby in Dover, N.H., April 13 and 14 at the Dover Ice Arena from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The feedback on the pizza so far has been positive, according to Spaulding. The rosemary apricot pizza with gorgonzola cheese has been a favorite.

Spaulding said the brick oven’s high heat makes for quick cooking. The pizza’s crust is thin and airy and comes with a variety of toppings.

“The wood fire really ups the game,” Spaulding said. “It just adds a whole other level of flavor.”

More: York Beach Pizza by Paras building 'dangerous'

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Stone & Fire Pizza truck heats up York Beach