NEWPORT — Chris Beaucher moved to New Hampshire from the Boston area in the late ’90s to escape the hubbub of the city.
Rural life suited him. After a couple of years, he bought a big plot of land in Springfield, N.H., enough to feel like he was “living in a different country,” and settled into a new, quieter routine, Beaucher said in a recent interview.
Life was sweet, but something was missing. Beaucher couldn’t find any good pizza. The pies he tried were oily and uninspired, nothing like the crispy, flavor-packed slices he grew up eating in Boston.
Beaucher decided to change that. A trained chef, he figured starting a successful pizza business in the area would be like “shooting fish in a barrel,” he said, and began scouring the internet for a food truck to serve as his kitchen.
One year and $100,000 later, Pizza Hero opened in 2023 in a renovated Manchester, N.H. municipal bus. Most recently, the flame-decorated bus has been stationed outside Protectworth Brewing on the John Stark Highway in Newport where Beaucher serves wood-fired sourdough pizzas and panuozzos, an Italian sandwich made from folded pizza dough.
Three years into a life of long days on a hot, cramped bus, Beaucher’s vision for Pizza Hero hasn’t wavered. He remains fussy about the ingredients he uses and how they’re prepared. The work is hard, but he’s fortified by the desire to bring great food to his community.
“I love what I do,” Beaucher, 62, said in an interview on the bus last Thursday, his hands coated in coarse flour.
It was 7:30 p.m., and he and his son Josh Beaucher, 31, were finishing up the last couple of orders for the night before the bus closed at 8 p.m.
They’d sold 50 pizzas since opening at 4 p.m. — good business for a Thursday, Beaucher said.
He and his son have been making pizza together since Josh was 7, but Beaucher’s restaurant career started decades before that, as a teenager washing dishes in a fast food joint in Reading, Mass., outside Boston.
It wasn’t long before Beaucher started working in more upscale establishments in Boston, and then Florida, in the early ’80s.
He later got a kitchen manager gig in Saint Croix, in the Virgin Islands, then headed north again, to Maine.
While working in a restaurant in Bangor, he met a chef from New York City who offered to teach him everything he knew about pizza. Beaucher took what he learned and opened his own cafe and restaurant in the early ’90s in Marblehead, Mass. where he served bagels, espresso and pizza.
Running the business was tougher than any of Beaucher’s previous restaurant jobs, and he worked “around the clock,” he said, while raising four young kids.
“That job almost killed me,” he said.
After two years in the trenches, he was ready to be done. He closed the business and found work in corporate kitchens, then moved to New Hampshire.
Running Pizza Hero has been a world apart from operating the brick-and-mortar business in Marblehead, Beaucher said.
The bus gives him the ability to try different locations. For example, Beaucher first took the bus to Maine before returning to New Hampshire and, in 2024, setting up outside Protectworth Brewing, where he parks Pizza Hero for free and has access to the brewery’s fridge space and electricity.
He’s also able to control the flow by accepting online orders only.
Pizza Hero in turn helps bring in business for the brewery, which opened its doors on an underpopulated stretch of the John Stark Highway in 2024.
“We couldn’t do it without him,” co-owner Tim Fraser said in an interview at the brewery last Thursday.
Beaucher doesn’t have to worry about all the extra costs that come with operating out of a permanent location, such as paying for a big staff.
His girlfriend and son sometimes help him during service, but most of the time Beaucher works alone.
That’s just as well — the renovated bus doesn’t have room for more than a couple of people on board. Other than a thin center aisle, almost every square inch is taken up by equipment or counter space.
Toward the front of the bus, a small case stocked with sodas sits next to a milkshake maker and a heavy dough press. (Beaucher flattened Pizza Hero’s first 4,000 dough balls by hand. After that, he realized that, if he wanted to maintain the use of his wrists, a dough press was in order.)
Opposite the press is a small bench for shaping the flattened dough, and adding sauce and toppings.
At the back of the bus, near the wash station, are two wood-fired ovens: a daily driver, and a backup.
Shaped like half-moons, they’re both manufactured by a company called Alfa Forni and imported from Italy.
Beaucher can comfortably fit four 12-inch pizzas in each oven, which he heats to 675 degrees Fahrenheit. They emerge slightly charred, and people often praise them for resembling New Haven, Conn.-style pizza, which is known for its thin, crispy crust and blackened edges, Beaucher said.
He appreciates the compliment but insists that his pizza isn’t really New Haven-style, as Pizza Hero’s dough is slightly stiffer, with a 65% hydration ratio, and cooked at a lower temperature.
Beaucher ferments his dough for about four days using a cold-water method, which ensures that the pizza comes out springy and rich in flavor.
The chef’s plum tomato sauce, meanwhile, is made daily, sometimes in the middle of service, to ensure freshness.
When it comes to the menu, Beaucher makes the classics, like cheese and pepperoni, along with more dressed-up pies such as the $23 Prosciutto and Arugula, which comes topped with mozzarella, parmesan, pine nuts and a drizzle of olive oil.
There’s also the extravagant $35 L’Americano Brutto (Italian for “The Ugly American”), a pizza piled high with a selection of meats, ricotta, anchovies, parmesan and fresh arugula.
It’s “a stack so wrong it would make a Sicilian grandmother spin in her grave,” Pizza Hero’s website says.
Beaucher has also been experimenting with a Lobster Panuozzo, folded pizza dough brushed with garlic-infused olive oil and filled with greens and chilled lobster from Maine.
Last Thursday, a Claremont family of three ordered a provolone and garlic pie for $18.50 and the Prosciutto and Arugula to share, along with beers from the brewery.
“It’s the best pizza around here,” Mary Hayes, 72, said in an interview at the table.
Crunchy and not too thick, “the crust is perfect,” she added.
“I don’t want my dough to be the main event,” her daughter, Colleen Hayes, agreed.
Mary Hayes previously worked in New York City where she was “spoiled for restaurants,” but since moving to Claremont four and a half years ago, options of the same caliber have been limited, she said.
While Claremont has several pizza restaurants — including Ramunto’s Brick Oven Pizza and Daddy’s Pizza, both located in the center of town — Hayes and her family enjoy the ambiance of Pizza Hero, which is about a 10-minute drive from the city center.
Thursday evening marked the family’s second trip to the bus that week.
“We’re very happy to discover this,” Mary Hayes said.
Beaucher, for his part, has no interest in slowing down in the kitchen, even as he nears retirement age.
On days when the bus is open — 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Mondays and noon to 8 p.m. on Fridays and weekends — he starts prep early in the morning and then works through service. The rest of the week, he puts in half-days planning and prepping.
“Passion is easy for me,” he said.
