A Slice of Life

/

Food truck owner Tyler Traut reopened his mobile restaurant after cancer treatment
By Tony Basso

photo by shane darby.

Cooking professionally was always a dream for entrepreneurial pizza chef Tyler Traut. After losing his job to COVID shutdowns, Tyler ran head-first into that dream, not knowing that it would become something much bigger and more meaningful than he had ever imagined. 

“Food has always been a happy place in my home,” he said. “I have always cooked and gotten a lot of satisfaction from the joy of serving food to others.”

Around ten years ago, Tyler began intentionally honing his craft. “About six or seven years before I became a full-time chef, I started trying to cook the best versions of some of my favorite foods. Whatever it was—hamburgers, steaks, brisket, lasagna, spaghetti—I got obsessed with it,” he explained. “I would cook the same thing every single day until I got it down, sometimes for months at a time. I finally got to pizza, and I realized this was my kind of wheelhouse.”

Enlisting his friends to sample his fares, Tyler tried out various pizza recipes, styles, and methods, sharpening his skills before unveiling his signature slice. These friends wanted more than a sample.

“As I got better at it, I started getting calls like, ‘Hey, I’m going to a party this weekend. Could you make me a few of those pizzas?’” Tyler recalled. “Word began to spread. My boss at the time asked me to make her a pizza. She posted it on social media, and my phone started ringing.” 

photos by shane darby.

Before long, Tyler had turned his hobby into a side hustle, sharing his pizzas with hungry people, even those outside the Texarkana area. Then, when he was laid off at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tyler understood that he could grow his pizza venture into something larger.

“I decided it was time to vamp this thing up,” Tyler explained. “Within a month, I had a full notebook of orders and was booked a week out for the next seven or eight months. I even had people who saw my posts on Facebook from all over the country who called and asked if I could make and ship them frozen pizzas.

“Around that time,” Tyler continued, “I was talking with a friend who asked what I was doing now. I told him I was delivering pizzas underground, and as soon as I said it, I knew that was the name.”

Tyler came up with the name for his business while joking with a friend about delivering pizzas “underground.” photo by shane darby.

After much preparation, Tyler opened the Underground Pizza Company food truck on September 18th, 2021. Not long after, he received shocking news that put his life and business in jeopardy.

“Three months after I opened, I was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare form of cancer,” he explained. “Not only did I think that my dream-come-true was over, but I also thought my life was over.”

At that time, Tyler was forced to shut down all operations to begin his fight with the rare disease, which affects one to two people per million. After many dark months of chemotherapy and radiation, Tyler finally received the scan results he had been waiting for. 

“By the grace of God, my PET scan results showed that the cancer had not spread,” he said. “I have been in remission for two years now. I’ve got another three years to go before I can ring the cancer-free bell, but I am so happy. I am happy to be alive, happy that I can still do my dream job, and happy that I still get that [child-like] satisfaction when I serve someone. Cancer taught me that it’s the little things in life that really matter.”

Underground Pizza was one of Tyler’s many reasons to push forward during those challenging months of treatment and uncertainty. Through the many trials of his battle, Texarkana supported Tyler like he never expected. 

“The only way I can describe it is overwhelming,” he said. “So many people reached out with their support. People raised money for me to support me while I could not work, churches were praying for me, cancer survivors and even those currently fighting cancer reached out with positive attitudes and support. The entire city of Texarkana was behind me, and I didn’t have a choice but to fight my butt off.”

Underground Pizza Company serves its “redneck New York–style pizza” from rotating locations, though its home base at 1205 Arkansas Boulevard. Find Tyler’s current location, full menu, and hours on the Underground Pizza Company Facebook page.