It’s been a month or so since I met Seth at Homeslice to enjoy the sun-dappled patio and a free pizza. My day job keeps me pretty much tied to my desk so I asked Seth if we could go early to beat the lines. I walked in when they opened at 11:30 a.m. and saw a line of work-a-day type dudes wrapped around the building, waiting for their pizza fix. It wasn’t even a Friday!

Luckily, Seth lives down the street and offered to walk over a bit early to make sure we snagged a table.

Although I don’t know Seth very well, I came to feel like I was getting to know him before we even met through his Year of the Pizza blog and Twitter account.

On meeting him in person, I proceeded to grill him (I think I might have scared him with my interest) about:

• How he gets around without a car. Living on South Congress, having a girlfriend, ahem fiance, with a car, not being afraid to ask for rides, his trusty bike.
• What he does for a living. While he currently focuses on his blog about his year of free pizza and enjoying said free pizza, he also is actively networking with folks in Austin and going on interviews (he is interested in technology and wind energy in case you know of anything).
• Favorite toppings. He loves anchovies and we ordered them on 1/2 the pizza. I tried them again and learned that I still do not — too furry and weird in the mouth. He avoids eating meat that is not locally and humanely raised so tends not to get that on his pizza. He is Jewish and would order pizza at Homeslice during Passover with just the toppings but Homeslice won’t make pizza that way so he would just eat the toppings off. Not sure if they would have made pizza on matzo if he asked — or if he did ask.
• If he has gained weight. If he has, it couldn’t be much. See photo below of a physique any couch potato would envy.

Other topics of conversation included his fiance Erin’s romantic reverse proposal, his tips on how to travel the world on a limited budget (eating out doesn’t help the cause — boo), and his great respect for the owners and staff members who work at Homeslice. His Year of the Pizza is really mostly a fan blog.

Below is a photo of our pizza, anchovies and all. Seth snapped this shot of  me photographing the pizza in a very meta, very social media conscious moment.

I asked Seth during our lunch about how he is recognized as the guy who gets free lunch whenever he walks into Homeslice. He told me that there is a picture up of him “somewhere in the back” that was taken right after he won  Hands on an Eggplant Sub (H.O.E.S.) last year but that he had never seen it.

It will come of no surprise to my regular readers that I asked our waiter to take us to the photo. He offered to bring the photo to us but we wanted to see it in it’s natural environment. The waiter led us to a small room the size of a walk-in closet near the bathrooms where two other staff members sat, working on a computer. It was crowded and I almost got nailed in the head when another waitress walked in but managed to snap this shot of the pic:

If you’re in the South Austin area this Saturday, be sure to stop by Homeslice between the hours of 12-7 p.m. to enjoy their annual Carnival-o-Pizza that will include extreme pizza eating, dough tossing, HOES, music, beer, games and more.

Seth thinks the HOES contest will begin at around 2-3 and go until the last person removes their hand from the sub. Stop by whenever on Saturday and into Sunday to cheer him on!