The first thing Joe Denoronha does after greeting me is take out the Hello Kitty pizza he made earlier in the day and pose for a photo with it. Garnished with olives and tomatoes, the pizza is one of hundreds of custom pies that Joe has made throughout his 16 years with UMass Dining.
A few minutes later, I find Joe at a small circular table in the corner of Hampshire Dining Commons, which he reserved a couple of hours earlier by placing two apples on it. Surrounded by students eating, Joe and I are meeting on his lunch break. He has a combination of spring rolls and french fries, and a glass of water with a lemon wedge.
He’s wearing his work uniform, a chef’s shirt and black pants beneath a standard black apron. Under his chef’s cap, Joe has short, black hair speckled with gray and a white goatee. When he smiles, wrinkles frame his eyes like sunrays. Tucked in his pocket are his circular black glasses, which he puts on later to look at his phone. Right now, Joe is pulling a small black case and a business card out of his pants pocket.
“I got you something because you are so smart,” he says, with a slight Portuguese accent. Before this, Joe was complimenting my pursuits to contact him. He accommodated my requests quickly–we’re speaking only a few days after I’d reached out.
The card has a QR code for his new YouTube channel, @Hamppizzajoe, and a graphic of him holding a pizza. The case holds a ballpoint pen with his channel’s URL inscribed on the side. Joe explains that when he reaches 200 subscribers, he’s going to give away a prize similar to the pen.
This was mid-February. Joe now has 261 subscribers, but his YouTube channel pales in comparison to his Instagram account, @hamp_pizzajoe, which has amassed over 20 thousand followers in the five years he’s had it. This is where he became “Hamp Pizza Joe.”
Joe’s videos are typically either interactions with students, new pizza creations or AI-generated content. Posting several times a day, he’s generated his face on characters while motivational music plays, created dubstep video edits of selfies taken with students and has used possibly every special effect CapCut offers. Joe laughs as he tells me about a recent video he generated of a personified donut as a stand-up comedian. He says he uses AI because it’s fun.
On Instagram, he refers to his audience as “pizza lovers,” but in person, Joe explains the main point of his Instagram is to connect to people, especially the students, since they’ll have a more immediate way to contact him. “They’ll know that I’m here, and I’ll do what I can to make them happy,” he says.
And it works. Students often message Joe requesting a specific pizza, and he makes it. Once, Joe tells me, a student asked him for a teriyaki pizza. He’d never done that before, so he created a new recipe: teriyaki sauce, marinade, carrots, chicken and scallions. He sent it to all the other dining halls, and now it’s an occasional menu item. Occasionally, that student messages Joe asking when he’ll make it again.
He responds, “Tell me when, everyone can have it.”
Joe jumps from story to story, sometimes not finishing the last before he begins another. When not fidgeting with the apple, his hands wave around to emphasize his words. He mainly talks about the students, who he says are his favorite part of the job.
At some point, Joe cuts off what he’s saying to greet Nakos Maroudas, a senior. The day before, Maroudas had come in asking Joe how he could arrange for his band to play in Southwest. In person, it’s clear the two have a solid friendship.
“Pizza Joe is one of my favorite people on campus. He’s always so supportive of the students, and it’s abundantly clear how much he cares about us,” Maroudas says.
“You’ll make me cry,” Joe jokes.
Joe’s worked at UMass since 2009, but that’s not where his story began. Born in central Brazil, he’s been working since he was 12 years old, selling ice cream on the street. In his 20s, he worked for an electrical engineering company, but he wanted something more. So, he moved to the East Coast and started working at a pizza restaurant.
“When you come here [to the U.S.], you do anything. That was tough for me,” he says.
But Joe persevered. While still managing the pizza restaurant, he bought a cafe. Each day, he worked at the cafe from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m., then he’d commute to the restaurant and stay until 11 p.m., a weekly schedule he stuck to for five years.
His hard work earned him the money to open a Dunkin’ branch in Hadley, and then another in Easthampton, which he owned for 14 years, until he decided to retire. But he wasn’t content to just stay home, so he came to UMass.
“Making people happy, it’s the most important thing. If you’re not happy, the food’s not gonna be good,” he says intently. Joe rarely breaks eye contact throughout our conversation, but with this, he looks more earnest.
A few minutes past 1 p.m., Joe rushes off, leaving behind his water and an apple. He’s late to his next appointment: making pizzas for the club volleyball team at their request. Making these additional pizzas on top of the regular menu items increases his already heavy workload, but Joe says he doesn’t mind. “More work for me, but that’s what I like to do – make people happy.”
His work isn’t unappreciated. “There’s no Hamp without Hamp Pizza Joe,” said Jamie Watt, a sophomore on the volleyball team. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this sentiment from students.
The second time we talked, I shadowed Joe while he made pizzas during Hampshire’s lunch hours. Of the four pizzas on the menu that day–Nutella, basil pesto, Chick-fil-A and pickle–Joe had introduced all of them to UMass Dining.
He kneads the dough for his Chick-fil-A pizza, and then tosses it in the air once. It’s topped with grilled chicken, waffle fries and homemade sauce. I ask what’s in the sauce, and he gives me a pointed look, trying to maintain its secrecy. But a second later, he softens and tells me.
Joe drops a pickle on the floor while making his second pizza, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. He moves very quickly, because he has to. On a busy day, he makes about 200 pizzas. As he takes one pizza out of the oven, he puts another in. When I ask how long it takes him to make one from start to finish, he says, “You’re gonna have to time me,” and cackles. Joe laughs again when he says God taught him how to make pizza.
Joe narrates what he’s doing, at times talking only to himself. He tells me stories as he makes the pizzas, sometimes repeating ones from when we first met. At one point, Joe talks to me for too long, overcooking one of the pizzas. “Sometimes they like a little burned,” he explains away.
Joe’s more than a pizza artist, he also paints pop-art portraits. He’s made them for family members, coworkers and even Chancellor Javier Reyes. While he started painting to deal with stress, it has since become a frequent hobby.
Selina Fournier, associate director of Hampshire Dining Commons, said Joe has made a portrait for her, and then a few years later, he gave her a portrait of her kids. He got the photo from her social media, so it came as a complete surprise. “It was very touching,” she said.
According to Fournier, Joe stays connected to his coworkers and their personal lives. “I think Joe is that big brother to everybody,” she said.
He isn’t just a part of a work family. Regarding life outside of Hampshire, the first thing Joe mentions is his three-year-old grandson, Lazaro, who’s pictured on his phone’s lock screen. Joe spends as much time as possible with him; he even got Lazaro a toy motorcycle to match his Harley-Davidson Softail Slim. He also mentions his wife, Maria, and daughter, Natalie, often.
Throughout our time together, Joe repeats something often: “Anybody can make pizza.” And he’s right. He taught me how to make it, after all. But there’s something about Joe that makes many students believe Hampshire Dining Commons wouldn’t feel the same without him. It’s not just his original recipes or the Hello Kitty pizzas; it’s the passion and love Joe has for what he does, the environment he creates for students and the positivity he exudes as he serves his UMass community. There might not be a Hamp without Pizza Joe, but there’s also so much more to Joe beyond his Hamp Pizza identity.
“Anybody can make pizza, but I make people happy with pizza,” Joe says.
