This Cult Favorite Pizza Pop-Up Is Going Mainstream (in the Good Way)

My Friend Derek’s, the elusive pizza pop-up that Seattle loves and follows (on Instagram, that is), will go from the spot you have to pay attention closely to find out when it’s doing something to a pizza place you can just stop into whenever.

The perennial pop-up is becoming an actual pizza joint in Tangletown, with a timeline to open in mid-December, according to the Seattle Times. It will take over the space formerly occupied by Ethan Stowell’s MKT.

The pizza, made by self-taught pizzaiolo Derek Reiff, is Detroit-style, and he started selling them in spring 2020 — it was a pandemic hobby, he tells the Times. Since then, he’s been selling pies whenever he has time outside his day job as a web developer. The only way to find out My Friend Derek’s would pop up was to keep an eye out on Instagram for a heads-up. They would frequently sell out in under an hour.

To start, My Friend Derek’s will serve four pies, including white pizza with sausage, red onion jam, Calabrian chili peppers and ricotta cheese, and pepperoni cups with Castelvetrano olives. It will include takeout and dine-in. The Times adds that Reiff is tinkering with creating a New York-style pizza in 2025.