Meet the Team
Here at Bondi Pizza we pride ourselves on our ability to spot talent in the most obscure places. Sure it would seem simpler and safer to search in conventional places to find our team members and conform to a corporate standard of employment particulars, but that’s just not who we are.
Our team is made up of a very diverse crew of misfits, most of them originating from very different backgrounds than you would expect for a Pizza restaurant. The single common denominator being that we are all incredibly passionate about our work and about delivering the very best pizza money can buy.
Renee Ferguson - Esposito
Considered a peasants meal in Italy for centuries we cannot say who invented the very first pizza pie. Food historians agree that pizza like dishes were eaten by many people in the Mediterranean including the Greeks and the Egyptians. However, modern pizza has been attributed to baker Raffaelle Esposito of Naples. In 1889 Esposito, who owned a restaurant called The Pizzeria Di Pietro, baked what he called “pizza” especially for the visit of Italian King Umberto & Queen Margarita. The Royal family loved it so much that they immediately made it the national dish of Italy.
When Gary & Mark started researching for the opening of their new restaurant, Gary went on holiday to Europe. He was taken on a sight seeing trip to Vatican city to visit the famed Michael Angelo ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel. He was so bored of the tour that he snuck off. Fortunately he got lost in the catacombs of the chapel and found himself in what seemed to be a library. Unbeknown to Gary he was actually sat in the national archives.
Gary being Gary couldn’t resist the temptation to improve his wealth of knowledge so he sat down and started reading. While thumbing through a book entitled “Italy’s BIGGEST secrets” he discovered the above information about the invention of the pizza as well as a recently amended family tree for Raffaelle Esposito.
Renee Ferguson – Esposito is a direct descendent of Raffaelle. She, like her great, great, great, great grandfather, dedicated her life to pizza. Being the only living relative of the pizza dynasty she holds the secret recipe for the original, and without doubt, best tasting pizza in the world.
On discovery of this information Gary & Mark spent a small fortune on trying to locate her whereabouts. There was not a rock left unturned, or corner not looked around. After three months (and many pizza tastings) she was unbelievably located here in Sydney, where yes you have guessed it, she and her team held the title for best pizza in Australia. She was immediately recruited and is now the corner stone of everything we do.
If you have not yet been to Bondi Pizza, or if you have but did not try Renee's Apple crumble Dessert Pizza, you must come straight back. As once again the Esposito family is creating pizza history.
Rita Caldwell
In the world of chess no name has more weight or mystery attached to it than Rita Caldwell. A childhood prodigy and the shinning star of the Robert James Fischer Academy (the greatest chess player to ever live), Rita had the world at her finger tips, literally. At just seven years old she defeated Gary Kasparov, the reining world champion, in-front of a global TV audience of 123 million gaining fame in all corners of the world and making the sport of chess once again cool.
At the age of seventeen, disaster struck. No-one really knows how or why it happened, but one morning while eating her breakfast something snapped in Rita’s mind. She had arranged all of the food on her plate in a chess formation and insisted that her dining partner (a non-chess player) play. At first her partner thought she was joking until Rita then went on to arrange all of the dinners in the restaurant as if they were also chess pieces.
Worried about her bizarre behavior, her mother took her to see a doctor. The doctor was completely puzzled by the apparent psychological experience Rita was having. A worry that was further heightened when she attempted to move him from his chair and replace him with a nurse stating proudly “Check-mate!”. After some months of investigation and many specialists it was finally concluded that Rita had a rare but dangerous disorder called Baron Chesskophs obsession.
For five years Rita had to be kept away from square rooms, she was not allowed near checkered flooring and she could not be in an area with more than two people. Any reference to chess boards or chess pieces would immediately throw her back to square one.
Thankfully Rita has made a full recovery, sadly she can never play a game of chess again. However, her accomplishments in the game have gone down in history. To this day, no one has every come close to her skill.
Thankfully for all of us at Bondi Pizza she is now our General Manager which we believe she does even better than she played chess. If you have ever been in the restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night you will have witnessed her seating people and moving people around, making sure no one ever goes without a seat.
Those who really know her believe she has found her own private chess game for which she is always the champion.
George
There has been much speculation about the identity of Top Gears test driver ‘The Stig’. Some say he is Michael Schumacher, some say he is a RAF fighter pilot and some say he is a robot.
At a very young age it was obvious to George’s mother that he was to grow into a very beautiful boy and a true ladies man. This became very obvious when she discovered him and his 17 year old baby sitter making out on the couch, George was 6.
George also demonstrated amazing driving talents very early on. Realizing this, his father invested in a motorized go-kart. At the age of 10 George was competing and winning races against 16 year olds. He caught the attention of Frank Williams from the Williams F1 racing team. George went on to train as a test driver for Williams until his 18th birthday.
On the day of George's first professional race for Williams at Silverstone, 87% of the tickets were sold to young women, all desperate for a look at their beautiful hero. Unfortunately due to the massive turnout of scantily dressed beauties there were 17 crashes during the race and over $12 million worth of Damage. The governing body for F1 banned George from ever racing again, sighting his good looks and huge female fan base a hazard to the sport. Reluctantly, Williams had to let young George go.
Having seen George's incredible driving skills, a young producer for a new TV show called Top Gear offered the boy-wonder a job as the test driver for his show. Jeremy Clarkson was so worried that he would be over shadowed by young George's good looks that he insisted George always remain in disguise or be fired.
Some say he has the taste buds of a royal food taster, and in his spare time, is the Sous-Chef at the finest pizza shop in the world.
Danielle (AKA Spitlanna Shiminof, Heidi Smirnoff, The Angel Of Death)
Danielle arrived at Bondi Pizza sometime around the beginning of April 2009. Around about the same time that Mark strangely disappeared for a few weeks. We cant be sure exactly what day as she wore disguises for the first few weeks she was around. What we are sure about is her ability to not only look after her self, but anyone who is with her when trouble calls.
One night just before closing time on a state of origin night, a group of 12 drunken footy supporters had spilled out into the street from a local pub. As they walked past Bondi Pizza one of our waitress’s had caught their eye and they started wolf whistling and shouting sexist remarks. Without warning Dani leapt from her seat and armed with only a napkin and a straw wrestled them all to the ground and demanded they apologies for their obscenities (Which they did).
Obviously we were all quite intimidated by this beautiful yet freakishly strong woman who had made our restaurant her permanent hang out. It was only months later and purely by Chinese whispers that we learnt Danielle was an ex KGB assassin. Rumour has it she was hired to eliminate Mark for his betrayal of the British official secrets act, which would of-course explain why he went into hiding when she first appeared.
What ever the case maybe, she didn’t knock Mark off instead he gave her a job as our restaurant manager/bouncer. Be warned she may be hot but she’s also very dangerous...
These people are absolutely correct.
Jazz
2008 was the year the world became obsessed with world ending disaster, rumours of rouge meteors crashing into the earth, continent sinking tsunamis, global warming and of-course the release of “2012”, the ultimate disaster yarn.
The story that was almost over looked or simply just hidden from the public, possibly the scariest of them all was the invention of the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC lies in a tunnel 27 kilometers (17m) in circumference, as much as 175 meter (570 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland in a secret government facility. The purpose of this machine, to recreate the BIG Bang. The reason for it, so scientists could gain some real understanding of how matter, and ultimately the whole universe was created.
Dr Jasmin Lambden, Astro Physicist and co-inventor of the LHC, spent most of her adult life creating, developing and ultimately building the LHC. She has paid dearly for her vision, sacrificing most of the things we all take for granted -friendships, family, holidays, and sunlight but she always believed she was doing it for the greater good of science and humanity.
For those who aren’t in the know, in basic terms the LCH fires two beams of protons in opposite directions through its 17km doughnut shaped tunnel. When the beams collide with each-other at the speed of light they are theoretically meant to re create the big bang and produce universe-creating matter. Many people believed that this experiment could be catastrophic, creating a big black hole that would swallow up the world within seconds.
Not fully understanding what would happen once the machine was activated the team lead by Jasmin decided to throw caution to the wind and fire it up. With the world watching on the 10th of September 2008 the LHC was switched on. The experiment took precisely 14 seconds and no black holes appeared.
It took 6 weeks to establish exactly what had been created by the experiment. There was no question that the LCH had performed, producing a small piece of matter that resembled a tiny meteor. No one could have predicted the results of the test, least of all Miss Jasmin Lambden.
On December the 10th 2008 exactly 2 months after the experiment, the results of the tests were unveiled. After 18 years of development, 118 billion dollars in research funds and all of Jasmin’s adult life, her machine had produced a meatball, yes a meatball……. The science world was brought to its knees with laughter. Shattered and embarrassed by the creation of her billion dollar meatball-maker Jasmin vanished.
On hearing this story Gary and Mark went in search of the meatball and its creator as rumor had it the meatball tasted goooooooooood. True to form they found Jazz on a 17 week Absinth bender in a little bar in the Alps where she was drowning her sorrows. After tasting the meatballs they both agreed they had to have them for the restaurant.
Jazz is now permanently employed as the exclusive Bondi Pizza Astro Physicist, once a week she travels to Switzerland where she fires up the LCH to produce the meatballs needed for our meatball tapas and meatball pizza. If you have not tried them yet we strongly recommend you do...
Jon Kennedy (AKA John Kelly)
With a name like Kelly it doesn’t take much to work out where our golden boy JK came from. Yes you guessed it, he is none other than the great grandson of Australia’s most celebrated crook, Ned Kelly. Trouble seems to follow the lad around like a bad smell.
Anyone that knows JK (who isn’t part of the NSW police force) will tell you he is as honest as the day is long, and has never so much as had a parking ticket. He is a regular law abiding citizen. Sadly this is a belief that the police refuse to subscribe to. Since that fated iron mask incident back in the 1800s the Kelly family have been haunted by the old bill.
To give you an idea of the persecutions, distrust and unfairness bestowed on our favorite blue-eyed boy allow me to share this little story with you.
In the summer of 2008 there was a very nasty dog fight on the North Bondi rocks between staffy named Bella and a French mastiff named Colin. While trying to break up the altercation Bella’s owner was bitten on the hand. The fight was clearly witnessed by over 200 people who would all later swear on oath in court that Colin, the mastiff, was the aggressor. In spite of this the police arrested JK for biting Bella’s owner and also for fighting with Bella, a crime he would later be convicted for.
Fortunately for JK, and indeed for Bondi Pizza, Mark was one of the many witnesses that appeared in court that day. So appalled by the injustice, he insisted the judge pass a sentence of community service to be worked off at Bondi Pizza.
It is almost impossible to see, since he has built his own take-away window, but JK actually has his leg permanently handcuffed to the wall to make sure he can’t get in any more trouble (an order passed by the court).
Raff (AKA Cachorro Loko)
Most people have never heard of BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais) but if you mention these initials to Raff, Bondi Pizza’s bar manager, you are likely to see the (normally mild mannered and well spoken gentleman) explode into a tirade of four letter expletives (In Portuguese) and rage.
Raff, like so many of the natives to Rio Da Janiero (Brazil) grew up in one of the many poverty stricken favelas where drugs and crime were part of everyday life. Even though many of his friends and piers had become tangled up in this world Raff steered clear, opting for the road less traveled, the road to justice.
BOPE, better known to the civilized world as ELITE SQUAD, was a crack team of military trained police headed up by Captain Rodrigo Pimentel (Raff’s childhood hero) with the soul mission of eliminating drugs from the streets of Rio. When ever BOPE were storming his favela instead of running to hide like the rest of his friends, Raff would run after the crack team studying their every move. His scrap book was full of newspaper clippings describing in detail every bust they had ever done. The boy was obsessed.
When he reached 18 Raff enrolled for the BOPE Academy. In-spite of his family background, in-spite of the area he had grown up in, and against all of the odds, he was accepted. He had no money to pay for his tuition and nothing to support himself so he took a job in Rio’s Hard Rock Café working every spare hour he had. First as a glass collector, then a bar back and eventually as a cocktail technician learning everything there is to know about mixing drinks.
After 6 long years of studying throughout the day and making drinks at night Raff graduated from BOPE Academy with flying colors. He was the toast of Rio De Janiero, a local hero. He was the boy from the slums who had come good, an over night media star, a shinning light for anyone wishing for a better life.
Unfortunately for Raff his hero status was short lived. On his very first mission, a kidnapping in downtown RDJ, he shot himself in the foot while carrying what he believed to be a hostage from a crack house. It actually turned out to be a (naked) prosthetic sex doll. Given his media stardom it was no surprise there was a crowd of photographers on the crime scene all waiting for the first shot of the wonder boy in action.
The next day the pictures were on the front page of every newspaper and Raff went from hero to laughing stock over night. Unable to live down the shame he moved to the furthest place he could find, Australia. He took up residence at Bondi Pizza and once again became the cocktail genius he had learned to be at The Hard Rock Café.
Gary Linz (Co founder)
If I were to say “I have a dream” or “Ask not what your country can do for you” or even “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” you would probably think of Martin Luther King, JFK or Neil Armstrong, you wouldn’t think of Gary Linz. In his capacity as chief speech writer for the CIA (1962–1974) Gary was responsible for some of the most memorable speeches of modern times.
It is also rumoured that in his spare time, his passion for all things poetic lead him into the lives of some of the most prolific song writers to have lived. When quizzed Gary denies that he wrote the lines “coo coo ca choo” (I am a walrus – The Beatles) & “Zigga zig ah” (If you wanna be my lover – The Spice Girls) but this is simply because he is a modest man who prefers to remain in the shadows rather than the lime light. If you could speak with John Lennon or Scary Spice they would undoubtedly credit the success of their careers to the beautifully creative writing Ability of Gary.
After years of uncredited creativity Gary decided he wanted/needed to give the world something that he was proud to attach his name to. Something he believed would not only feed our imaginations (as so many of his beautiful words had previously) but also something that would feed our bellies and our souls. After a chance meeting at a creative German poetry class in Berlin, Gary and Mark sealed their future with a (beautifully) hand written business plan on the back of a napkin and Bondi Pizza was born.
Mark Ruck (Co Founder)
When Michael Frost Beckner approached Mark about turning his life story into a motion picture with Brad Pitt cast in the lead role and Tony Scott to direct (Spy Games), he was excited & relieved that his days as a spy were coming to an end.
After so many years of assuming the roles of others to over throw corrupt governments and tyrannical dictators Mark was sure that having a movie made about his life would not only provide him with infinite wealth, but also force MI5 to relieve him of his duty. It would also afford him the heroic accolades he felt he had always deserved but never received due to the secrecy of his missions.
Unfortunately for Mark the British government found out about the film and were far from impressed by his gross misconduct and misinterpretation of the official secrets act. They insisted all reference to him or MI5 be removed from the movie.
Fearing for his life Mark fled to the only place he could think of that the British government would not look for him, Berlin, Germany. Not wanting to draw attention to himself Mark assumed the role of a very normal conservative German. He worked as a concierge at a 4 star hotel, he drove a silver Volkswagen and he enrolled for as many night classes as he could to learn the local culture.
It was while attending one of these classes (Creative German Poetry) that everything changed for Mark. This was where he met Gary Linz and the pair dreamt up Bondi Pizza, once again providing him with fast cars, beautiful women, and the excitement he had learned to love as an international spy.
Spy Game was re-written about an American spy named Tom Bishop, it went on to win many awards and Tom Bishop became a very wealthy all American hero……
