Geoffrey Deetz

I ran my first kitchen at age 18 and during these early years I cooked at many well know restaurants throughout the East Bay. I opened my first restaurant at age 32 and I quickly had 3 restaurants up and running each with a unique concept and menu. I opened the first "build your own pizza" restaurant called California Topless Pizza in 1994 long before MOD pizza was even thought of. The guest can come in and actually make their own pizza on a par baked crust and have it delivered to the table in 3 minutes,

After selling my restaurants I was passing through Vietnam with 50 dollars in my pocket as the first bird flu epidemic hit. I was on my way to China to open my "make your own pizza" concept restaurants with an investor. I found myself in Vietnam with no money and no job as my investor had backed out due to his restaurants struggling in the US. I found work as the retail manager of an up and coming coffee shop chain called Highlands Coffee which now has over 600 locations throughout Vietnam and south east Asia. One thing led to another and over the next 16 years I managed to open and operated over 20 different restaurants throughout Vietnam. Opening Vietnam's first burrito shop, cup cake shop American steak house, gourmet burger joints and a BBQ restaurant theme Zombie BBQ. to a sidewalk noodles stand (a white guy hawking Bun Bo Hue in the streets of Saigon was quit a sight to see. I opened a central kitchen to handle the volume of all these concepts forming a "ghost kitchen" years before the concept was introduced in the US. Online delivery was booming in Ho Chi Minh City in 2010 I ran 6 concepts from this location as well as catered for 3 international school food programs.