New owners of a popular Pekin-based pizza food truck are ready to open for the season

The new owners of the popular Pekin-based The Pizza Guys Woodfired food truck intend on carrying on the old owners' legacy.

“Dave and Cathy (Wildenradt) have done such a good job of making a name for it,” said Pizza Guys co-owner Cody Stewart. “We’d be in Morton and someone would say “I drove over from Canton,” and I’d be like “Did you come for the event?’ He said ‘No, I came for the pizza.’ People follow the (Pizza Guys) Facebook page and travel just to get a slice of our pizza.”

Stewart and his wife and business partner, MaryBeth, are both teachers and each spent several summers working with The Pizza Guys.

When the Wildenradts elected to “pass the peel” to new owners earlier this month after 10 years in business, the Stewarts felt well-placed to purchase their pizza truck and its mobile brick oven.

“We really fell in love with the type of events that they would serve at,” MaryBeth Stewart said. “They would do festivals and different events at parks, or we’d go to breweries and wineries. It was just a very exciting job. It gave us something to do over the summer and got us into the community, which we really like to do doing. So, once they said that they were retiring and they were going to sell it we thought it fit really well with our lifestyle as teachers.”

In a joint farewell Facebook message to customers, the Wildenradts expressed confidence that the Stewarts, with their understanding of the business, were the right fit to move The Pizza Guys forward.

“The Wildenradts felt blessed not only by their faithful employees over the years but also by the wonderful relationships they built with communities and venues throughout Central (Illinois),” they wrote. “We will treasure the memories and have encouraged the Stewarts to continue the good work and prepare to be blessed as well.”

The ownership transfer was apparently planned well in advance of its announcement.

The Stewarts have spent the past two months making sure the truck is up to code, setting up insurance, getting licensed as an LLC, and obtaining a permit from the Tazewell County Health Department.

MaryBeth Stewart asserted that their rolling pizzeria is ready to serve at spring and summer events and has already established a strong local customer base.

“We really wanted to honor all of the regular customers that Dave and Kathy had built over the years,” she said. “They gave us all the contact information for their customers and we made sure to book with them before we opened up to new customers so we could honor those long-standing relationships. The relationships are a huge part of the business for us. We really enjoy talking to the people and hanging out with them, and supporting other local businesses.”

The Pizza Guys’ spring schedule will kick off April 20 when the Stewarts roll into the Delavan High School Softball Tournament from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The truck will be in Lincoln April 21 for the Open Arms Christian Fellowship anniversary celebration. The Stewarts are planning a full schedule of events that will begin in late May and continue into fall.

More information is available on The Pizza Guys Woodfired Facebook page.