Send Vince to Italy for World Top 100 Pizza Award

***UPDATE 7/26  Peter on behalf of Ken’s has offered to help by taking care of my plane ticket, which is HUGE!!! this will make the trip much more of a possibility and much less of a personal financial setback for us, with that said I’m going to be lowering the fundraising goal by $500, we still got a ways to go!***

Hello All!!!

My name is Vincent Krone, I am the Pizzaiolo/Chef of Ken’s Artisan Pizza in sunny Portland Oregon!

This year Ken’s was ranked 11th in the USA by a reputable organization based in Italy known as 50 Top Pizza. I had the huge privilege of attending the award ceremony in New York City with Ken’s Owner and General Manager, Peter Kost, and it was a great honor for our hard work to be recognized while in the presence of so many legendary pizza and food and beverage industry pros.

We were so excited to be ranked so well as this year we operated on our own without the guidance and supervision of the restaurant’s Founder and original owner, Ken Forkish, as he retired officially on New Years and is now living it up in Hawaii, we were even more excited to find out that this year is the first year that 50 Top Pizza will be Ranking the Top 100 Pizzerias in the World, and since we were placed in the top 15 in the US, we received a golden ticket invitation to Napoli, THE (for all intents and purposes) BIRTHPLACE OF PIZZA, for the the official world 100 top pizza ceremony. THEY GAVE US A GOLDEN TICKET YOU GUYS!!! September!!! It’s happening!!!

Peter already has travel plans very close to the date of the event and Ken doesn’t want to go because it sounds too much like work (kidding, it’s just a long flight from Hawaii and he’s a busy man with an awesome new book coming out, go buy it) And as for myself, we’ll let’s just say I’M BROKE!!! Really though, inflation sucks, plane tickets are expensive as all hell and I found out recently that the golden ticket we received isn’t actually made out of gold and has no real monetary value, atleast according to eBay and a few local pawn shops.

Thats where all of you wonderful ‘Patrons of the Pizza Arts’ come into play!!! Please, if you can, donate and share this to help my amazing and super cool wife Lena and I with our travel expenses so that we can accept this award in person. Did I not mention that she’s coming with me? Oh well she is, as we haven’t had a proper vacation in years, can you guess why? It’s because life is hard and I work too damn much.

All that said It will be a huge honor to be on the other side of the world, representing my beloved city and country as Ken’s was the only Portland Pizzeria to make the cut along with only 14 other American Pizza Makers, it’s such a surreal feeling to be considered by anyone part of one of the Top 100 Pizzerias in the world, My crew and I continue to work really really hard and we get better at what we do every day so I’m starting to finally accept it. Who knows if we’ll ever get to be a part of something like that again?! I’m hopeful and determined for next year as well but there are very few guarantees in life so please help me get there this time!!!

Thanks for reading through this mess of words and for the help in whatever way you can give it, those who know me well

probably also know that I can’t stand asking for help from anyone for pretty much anything, but I’m working on that, and the more I think about this opportunity the more it means to me so Portland, friends and family, you’re so very special and I LOVE YOU!!! LETS GO GET OUR AWARD!!!!