Restaurant owners sing Ed Sheeran’s praises in pizza

BATESVILLE, Ark. (KAIT) - Stella’s Brick Oven Pizzeria and Bistro in Batesville has found a cheesy way to sing the praises of Ed Sheeran.

According to a recent Facebook post, the pizzeria’s owners, Doug and Laurie Gottschalk, and their daughter Shelby met the singer-songwriter while visiting Clearwater, Florida.

Laurie said her daughter Shelby is a huge Ed Sheeran fan.

She said Shelby, who is battling rare diseases, felt especially close to his most recent album.

“It was his new album that really resonated with her and changed her and made her feel like someone understood the journey she was taking,” Gottschalk said.

The two had plans to attend a Sheeran concert, and Shelby had created a gift for him that she wanted him to be able to have.

“We had reached out to his manager, she had a gift for him, and then I wanted to try and get an album cover signed, you know just the vinyl covered signed for her birthday, so she reached out to see if there was some way, we could get that to him,” Gottschalk said. “And they reached out back to her a few days later and said that he would like to meet with her backstage.”

While talking with Sheeran, they learned his favorite pizza is a margarita with jalapeños drizzled with his own hot sauce.

“We do specialty pizzas every month and we had run out of ideas, and I was talking to my daughter one night and we decided that we would do a specialty pizza and name it the Ed Sheeran based on a story that we could tell our community,” Gottschalk said.

Caught up in the chaos of meeting Sheeran, Gottschalk forgot her original mission.

“I forgot to get the album signed! At the end of the day, I forgot to get the vinyl signed,” Gottschalk said.

“The Ed Sheeran” will be the specialty pizza through the first week of August.

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