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As Weird Wave Coffee Brewers approaches its one-year anniversary, the coffeehouse was embroiled in a gentrification battle in Boyle Heights last July. Things have calmed down recently as the owners partnered with a Chicago pizza chef to bring Chicago’s lesser-known thin-crust pizza to East LA. Eric Iverson opened Pizza Jones inside Weird Wave in late April.
Weird Wave co-owners Jackson Defa and John Schwarz had a mostly unused kitchen space since opening Weird Wave Coffee in 2017. The duo embarked on a search for a suitable pop-up or vendor to utilize the space and found Iverson.
Iverson’s 12-inch thin crust pizzas can feed two people and starts at $9 a pie. “The true standout of my product and the culmination of my life’s work is my crust,” says Iverson. “Achieving the absolute perfect crust has been a life long obsession. And despite the reputation, Chicago is a thin-crust town. Weird Wave Coffee uses a state-of-the-art water filtration system for their coffee and my dough just loves it.”
Iverson previously owned a small chain of pizzerias in the Chicago suburbs called Charlie Fox’s Pizza. Regarding the controversy from last year, Defa says Weird Wave feels more settled in. “Things are fine now, business is good. There are still a couple of bad actors in the neighborhood, but it’s juvenile kind of antics. The community has largely embraced us.”
Pizza Jones
2415 E Cesar E. Chavez Avenue
Los Angeles, CA
