Pizza Pioneer Bottles And Sells New Hot Sauce

Conner Close, manager of Gay 90’s Pizza Company in Pleasanton, has added his spicy hot sauce to the pizza parlor’s menu. (Photo - Doug Jorgensen)

PLEASANTON — Gay Nineties Pizza Company General Manager Conner Close remembers the moment he came up with the idea for his Green Gas Hot Sauce, which is now on the menu at the Pleasanton restaurant and has developed somewhat of a cult following.

Close was having breakfast at Vic’s in Pleasanton and had doused his food with Tabasco sauce.

“I thought, ‘wow, this is in every kitchen and almost every country. These guys must be totally crushing it,’” he said. “How awesome to start a business with that as your product and to be as big as they are.”

Close’s fiery hot green pepper sauce is now a chicken wings appetizer dunkable and being distributed to area retailers, but it took a lot of work to get to that point.

With the idea firm in his head, he went to the grocery store where he gathered an array of fresh green pepper varieties to add to the salts, vinegars and spices he already had on hand for his first prototype—concocted in a small bullet blender that produced a few bottles.

On a whim, he let a customer try it and to his surprise, the guy loved it and asked to purchase it on the spot. That first bottle sold for $5 and snowballed with other customers asking for it.

“I made $100,” Close remembers, “and took all the money and bought a bigger blender. Five bottles turned to 12 to 24 and I started buying cases.”

He eventually purchased a bottle-filling machine with a 7 ½ gallon heated hopper and got permission from the restaurant’s owner to use the restaurant’s kitchen to make his batches. He and a fellow employee cooked the sauce in a giant pot.

“We’d be cutting peppers here till 3 in the morning.” Full steam ahead, he now has a co-packer so he can focus on the growth of the business.

Close credits Gay Nineties’ owner Robert Earnest as a mentor.

“He’s a great guy. He’s taught me everything I know.” He’s also been hugely supportive, Close explained, adding that Earnest allowed him to use Gay Nineties as his business address for his hot sauce’s LLC.

Close’s journey at Gay Nineties actually started when he was 15 and asked his mom for $10 to go to the movies. As one of five kids, money was tight, he said, remembering what she told him, “No Conner, you can go get a job and somebody will pay you to work.”

So he headed to one of his favorite places, Gay Nineties, and asked for a job. That was a Friday and by Monday, he was dressed in black pants and a white shirt and ready for his first day of work.

He started with cleaning tables, eventually moving on to serving at 17 years old, although he was too young to run liquor to his tables.

About three years later, the general manager’s job opened, and the employees banded together with support for Close.

“All the other employees said, ‘let’s let Conner try it, we think he can do it, ‘” Close said.

He did not apply for the job, but he was given it.

“I was given a little bit of responsibility and when I handled it, I was given more,’’ he said.

Eventually, the owner moved and has been out of state for the past 8 years, leaving all the day-to-day operations to Close. “And the rest is history,” he said.

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