our gorge question + answer
tounding. We can’t wait to open the doors to feed everyone and celebrate this project.
Q: Why do you think it was so successful? Suzanne: I think people love being rallied to get in-
volved. We showed some vulnerability by asking for help, but it worked. Also, I think people recognize that we donate often and generously to a lot of important causes and projects in the Gorge and they wanted to reward us for that commitment. But more simply, we feel that we offered fun, engaging and generous rewards for pledges. We are still so awed by the power and support of folks who live and visit here.
Q: You put unlikely ingredients like cherries, huckleberries and fiddlehead ferns on pizza. How do you come up with these combinations—and make them taste so good? Aaron: We live in food paradise. The Gorge is any
Aaron & Suzanne baumhackl
After six years in Bingen, Aaron and Suzanne Baumhackl have moved Solstice Woodfire Café to a brand new building on the Hood River waterfront—thanks in part to funding from hundreds of fans that contributed to a Kickstarter campaign. We caught up with the couple just before their new restaurant opened to talk pizza, and other things. by janet cook
Q: Why pizza? Why wood-fire pizza? Aaron: Pizza is a super fun and versatile medium to
create with. The fun part of pizza is that I can be a chef with a dish that almost everyone enjoys and I get to be creative and push people’s traditional comfort zones. (For example, our wildly popular locally sourced Country Girl Cherry pizza with Chorizo.) I love playing with fire and I love the balance of crispy and chewiness of the wood-fire crust. When we moved here in 2006, we saw the opportunity to introduce inventive wood-fire pizza to the Gorge, so we seized it.
Q: To help fund your new restaurant in Hood River, you turned to Kickstarter. Why? Suzanne: We had to give it a try because we weren’t
eligible for conventional financing. We also needed
12 the gorge magazine // winter 2014
to raise a lot of money to build this new space and we really didn’t want to give away equity to investors. We’ve worked really hard the past seven years and decided to fund our business growth through a mix of funding options. Kickstarter was really appealing because you reward pledges with creative items, you don’t ask for donations. We also wanted to involve the community and see if they would validate our plans. Also, when the opportunity arose to relocate to the waterfront, we felt strongly that people would welcome the opportunity to cocreate the waterfront neighborhood.
Q: How much did you raise? Suzanne: Our 456 generous backers helped us meet
our goal of $50,000 in just two weeks. And they kept going—we surpassed our goal and reached $57,647 in just three weeks. This community is as-
true chef ’s dream “market” for fresh fruit, wild fish and game, and local foraging (plus great wine and beer!). The special combinations come from different inspirations including mixing sweet, spicy and savory, or from a tasty meal or a twist on a classic, or plain experimentation with ingredients that are new to me.
Q: You focus heavily on using fresh, local ingredients. Tell us more. Aaron: We love having a personal relationship with
our purveyors, whether it’s the Yakima Nation fisherman or the family-run blueberry grower. These growers are true motivators for us. Their pride in what they do inspires us to create tasty dishes using their hand-grown, pasture-raised, fresh-caught or foraged ingredient.
Q: Where did the idea for the mobile pizza oven come from? Aaron: It’s something that we wanted to do from
the get-go, but we felt like we needed to establish ourselves as brick-and-mortar first. Finally, with seeing the surge in the food-cart scene in Portland, we pulled the trigger and built our first mobile in 2011. We now bring the pizza to the people.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about the new Solstice? Aaron: The view. Suzanne: We’ve had a rare chance to fulfill our dream
and co-create this vibrant space from the ground up. We hope the success of our business and our focus on sourcing local fosters abundance for us all. Solstice Hood River is a reflection of Aaron and me, this town, and how much we love our community on both sides of the river.•