Slices, Secrets, and Shared Stories: A Culinary Homecoming in Las Vegas

Las Vegas doesn’t just greet you. It engulfs you.

The last time I found myself in Las Vegas, the world felt like a different place. Nearly two years had passed since I last touched down in the desert, and though the skyline hadn’t shifted much, stepping onto the Strip again felt like sensory whiplash in the best and most bewildering way possible.

Las Vegas doesn’t just greet you. It engulfs you.

No matter the hour, the city hums with a relentless rhythm lights, music, people, and motion. Slot machines flash like fireflies in overdrive. Performers and partygoers blur into a kaleidoscope of sound and spectacle. It’s overstimulation by design, and still, somehow, it works.

But I’ve learned something in my years of visiting: for all its intensity, Vegas always leaves you with a memory worth keeping. And this trip, built around media work and culinary showcases, was no exception.

After a full day prepping for a private event, I joined the team for a much-needed break and bite. We gathered at Momofuku, David Chang’s sleek yet familiar spot tucked inside The Cosmopolitan. The menu was as expected confident, layered, unpretentious. We kicked off with a round of old-fashioned sharp, smoky, with that unmistakable DC flair.

What stood out wasn’t just the food or drink, but the company.

I’d worked closely with the Gozney crew before, but this was my first time meeting the team from Sandtown Pizza, a pizzeria based out of Utah. Chris, the owner, had brought along Karen, Mauricio, and Aiden. It didn’t take long to realize this crew wasn’t just good they were dialed in.

Mauricio wore a vintage WWE “Greatest Wrestlers” shirt and slung a well-worn Chrome Industries bag across his shoulder. That alone told me we’d get along just fine. The shared language of culture, design, and heat-forged hustle isn’t exclusive to chefs or pizza pros, it’s lived in the small details, in the way people carry themselves when they’ve worked a thousand shifts and still show up with love for the craft.

By 2 a.m. Vegas time 5 a.m. back home in Georgia—I’d been up a full 24 hours. My body told me to crash, but my instincts said otherwise. One thing about hanging with chefs and pizza makers: there’s always one more place to hit.

That’s how we found ourselves at Secret Pizza.

Hidden in plain sight on the third floor of The Cosmopolitan, the entrance looks like an afterthought a narrow hallway lined with framed photos and vintage clippings, the kind of stretch you’d walk past a dozen times without thinking twice. But if you follow it far enough, past the visual noise and into the quiet, you’ll find a place that’s pure and unfiltered.

There’s no signage, no hostess stand, no Instagram bait. Just a few stools, a small TV playing whatever game’s on, and a board of classic New York-style pizza options, no stuffed crusts, no gimmicks. Just dough, sauce, cheese, and a bit of soul.

It’s exactly the kind of place I love.

And it was in that sliver of a space, standing shoulder to shoulder with people I’d only just met hours earlier, that the real connection happened.

On the surface, we couldn’t have looked more different. Different backgrounds, different cities, different corners of the food world. But that’s the beauty of a good slice shared at 2 a.m., food collapses the distance.

By the time we were two slices in, we were no longer strangers. We spoke the same language.

Not in words, but in nods of approval, in laughs that echoed off the tiled walls, in the quiet understanding that moments like this, simple, spontaneous, real are what keep us in the game.

In a city designed to dazzle and distract, Secret Pizza reminded me that the best stories often happen away from the lights. In hidden hallways. Over hot slices. Among people who love what they do.

In a place where everything seems to shimmer, it’s these unpolished moments that shine the brightest.