WICHITA — There’s a little piece of popular Pratt restaurant Charlie’s Home of Pizza Taco in Wichita’s new Charlie’s PizzaTaco.
Charlie’s owner Charlie Hoffman has lent the little red oven that started it all to his son Dave Hoffman’s new restaurant near Central and Tyler.
“He kind of wanted a piece of Pratt here,” manager Adam Hoffman says of his great uncle.
Charlie Hoffman was helping his father run a gas station in Pratt in 1965 when he was approached by a food company to buy a $200 pizza oven. He says the company told him it would give him enough product to sell pizzas and make back his $200.
“So I said, ‘OK, bring the oven,’ ” he says.
Hoffman retired the oven only when he sent it to Wichita.
“I’ve used it all this time because it was such a handy oven,” he says. “Later, I couldn’t find them again when I bought more ovens.”