Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Lesley Carr shows off her chocolate pizza.

Chocolate pizza builds a mother-daughter firm

It can all be traced to dad's sweet tooth

By Carolyn Leal

It all can be traced to Saratogan Jim Carr's sweet tooth.

Every year at Christmas, Jim's daughter, Eydie Leighty of Issaquah, Wash., tried to come up with something that would tantalize her dad's legendary sweet tooth.

"One year, she had this idea about creating a chocolate pizza. She made up the recipe in her kitchen," explains her mom, Lesley Carr.

"She went to a local pizza store and got a box, made a label on the computer and she brought it to town. I picked her up at the airport and she had this pizza box with her. I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't hot and didn't smell like pizza."

By the time they got to the car, Carr was consumed with curiosity.

"I couldn't stand it. I opened the box and took a look at it. At the time, I was doing promotions and event management. I looked at it and said, 'This is incredible. This is a product. We're in business and you're my partner.'"

Mama 'n Mia Inc. was born on Dec.15, three years ago, with Lesley as the mama and Eydie as Mia.

By February, the two had incorporated, researched what they needed to know from the FDA and leased commercial kitchen space in Washington state, where Edyie lives. They did several months of long-distance consultation and product experimentation, coupled with "pizza tastings" among friends and relatives.

"We thought we had a really hot product," Lesley recalls. "Now, we have five product lines and 1,600 square feet of commercial kitchen space in Redmond, Wash.We sell and market through an 800 number which goes right into the kitchen."

They also get customers by word of mouth and from the San Jose Museum of Art Gift Shop, which carries their line, including "Trom Ploy," edible art that tricks the eye. There's Jake's Banana Split, two scoops of white chocolate ice cream nestled between banana halves, topped with chocolate syrup, white chocolate whipped cream and a faux red cherry.

"If you set it on the table and look at it, you would think it was a real banana split," Carr says.

The line is heavy on whimsy with chocolate picture frames ("Picture This"), clay flower pots filled with chocolate flowers ("Everything's Coming Up Chocolate") and ceramic brown bags filled with colorful chocolate lollipops ("That's My Bag"). But it's the chocolate pizza that everyone flips over.

"In the sense of being a pizza, visually it looks like a pizza," Carr says. "We customize these chocolate pieces for events, for corporations , for individuals. One of the things we will have at the Museum of Art is a Mother's Day chocolate pizza."

The pizzas start at $16.95 for the eight-inch size and go up to $32.95 for the largest, most expensive flavor, macadamia nut and white chocolate.

Neither Carr nor her daughter had been involved in food production before. "It's the last thing in the world people expected us to do. Neither of us are cooks," Carr says.

Carr does marketing from her Saratoga home and travels to the kitchen for a week, once a month. She refuses to give out sales or profit figures for the privately held company, but says, "Every year, we've more than tripled our sales from the previous year."

Of Mama 'n Mia, she says, "It felt right. It looked right and here's the opportunity to be in business with my daughter. We've always had a lot of fun together."

Lesley Carr will be at the San Jose Museum of Art's Gift Shop at the San Jose Pavilion, 150 S. First St., on May 2, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with some of her creations.