When Leo Garcia set out to find the best wood-fired pizza in Tucson, Fiamme Pizza popped up in the first search result.
He's always wanted to work with food and has years of restaurant experience under his belt. But the first time he ever had Neapolitan-style pizza was at Fiamme.
“I didn’t know anything about pizza, but I told them I want to learn,” Garcia says.
The very next day, he was hired and learning from founder and pizzaiolo Scott Volpe.
After learning from Volpe and saving up enough money, Garcia opened Family Joint Pizza with his cousin Vince Bencomo in 2020. The mesquite-fired pizza oven on wheels was hand-built by their now 72-year-old uncle. The mobile pizzeria started in Green Valley and eventually traveled into Tucson with its pies topped with carne asada, chorizo and other Sonoran flavors.
Their fanbase started and grew in Green Valley and the outskirts of Tucson, where Family Joint still operates. This year, Garcia branched out and started food truck Lumbre Pizza A La Leña, hoping to build a community here in Tucson, just like the one he created in Green Valley with the help of Bencomo.
Now, Garcia is ready for his next step. Come Oct. 2, you’ll be able to get his Mexican-fusion pizza inside downtown coffee shop Cartel Roasting Co., 210 E. Broadway.
Lumbre’s menu includes toppings like chorizo, elote and carne asada atop pizza.
Wood-fired pizza inspired by Sonoran flavors — and Garcia's nana
Food has long been part of the plan for Garcia.
He opened a restaurant with his dad in 2016, which has since closed, and he moved north to Phoenix where he also worked in the food industry. When he moved back to Tucson, he worked at Charro Steak before learning the world of pizza at Fiamme.
“I knew I always wanted to do food,” Garcia says. “I was at a barbecue, a family get-together, and someone had come from Seattle and was like, ‘I just had wood-fired pizza from a food truck’ and they showed me a picture.”
As a dad of four, Garcia has eaten a lot of pizza in his day.
“We love pizza, all my kids love pizza,” he says. “I was so intrigued the first time I made pizza. I fell in love as soon as I touched the dough and had a piece. I figured it out, I was like, I know what I need to do.”
While he learned from Volpe, Garcia's dough is completely different and he doesn’t call his pizza Neapolitan, though it is wood-fired.
Lumbre Pizza started as a pizzeria on wheels.
“I remember tasting (the pizza at Fiamme) and it tasted like a tortilla to me because it was so thin, so I thought carne asada could would work (as a topping),” he says. “I’ve always wanted to do some kind of fusion with Mexican and Sonoran flavors because that’s all I grew up with, specifically at my nana’s.
“She cooked every day for the last 30-40 years — we would get together at family get-togethers almost every Sunday and we would do carne asada. We would say, ‘Nana, we want a rasapado,’ and she would make the syrup. My tata would shave the brick (of ice) and put it in the cup. She would get it done in like, an hour. And we were like, ‘How did you do this?’”
“A lot of inspiration (for the pizza) came from my nana,” he says. “She helped me with ingredients and I always ask her questions.”
This isn't the first time Cartel has been home to a pizzeria. Penelope Pizza served their wood-fired pies in the beloved coffee shop until July when the pizzeria moved into their own brick-and-mortar on the east side. When Garcia heard about the vacancy, he reached out to Cartel.
“We had an interview, they did the taste test, we brought the oven and gave them samples of everything,” Garcia says.
While several pizza makers were interested in the space, Garcia says it ended up being between Lumbre and one other pizzeria.
Lumbre got the contract.
“Working in the food truck industry, the weather is the biggest thing. It’s hard to prepare for a long day of work and then the weather affects that,” Garcia says, adding that pizza dough can be especially sensitive to weather.
While he's grateful for the chance to finally work indoors, he also thinks his pizza is best enjoyed while sitting down, possibly alongside a glass of wine or beer — he’s planning to get a liquor license for the space at Cartel.
“Our pizza’s a little different because of what we’re doing with the toppings, so I don’t think many people have tried what we’re bringing,” he says. “It’s a good space specifically downtown, so everybody is able to come. That’s what we want — to bring everyone here. Everything happened for a reason and everything fell into place.”
While Garcia still plans to operate the Lumbre food truck in the future, the mobile operation will be paused until early next year while the dust settles at Cartel.
Along with pizza, Lumbre serves elote and garlic knots. They’re working on an expanded menu with wood-fired bagels and other brunch items.
If you’ve had pizza from Family Joint, the menu at Lumbre is similar — elote atop pizza, a pie with tomatillo salsa, the famous carne asada pizza. The menu does, however, have some differences: for example, Lumbre uses Bashful Bandit BBQ’s chile relleno sausage on their Meat Lover pie.
Garcia has two favorite pizzas on the Lumbre menu: the Calabresa, which he calls a game-changer with its spicy pepperoni and ricotta; and the carne asada, which also tends to be the fan favorite. The carne asada is paired with a cilantro lime crema, something Garcia hopes to bottle up for the many customers who ask for more of it.
When Lumbre opens at Cartel, Garcia plans to expand the menu even further. Think breakfast pizzas and Sunday brunch with wood-fired French toast and chilaquiles. Wood-fired bagels are also in the works, and Garcia plans to collaborate with other chefs and food trucks to host after-hours events.
“Bringing the community together — that’s what we’re here for,” he says. “That’s what food does.”
