By Scott Cronick
Mike Hauke has never played by the rules of a typical restaurateur.
Before opening the now-famous Tony Boloney’s in Atlantic City, Hauke never even worked in the industry except for a brief stint as a barista at a Starbucks that he was fired from after showing up late on 9-11.
But, that’s a whole other story.
In fact, Tony Boloney’s came into existence and became the creative pizza palace that it is because everyone basically told Hauke he could never make it if he didn’t do things that many other pizza places do.
He didn’t listen to any of them. He personally and professionally revolted in pretty much every way. And that stubbornness, drive, attention to detail and pure passion led to Tony Boloney’s expanding to multiple locations around the state.
It also led to his creations like the Taco Pizza and an overloaded pepperoni cup pie becoming viral on social media. And his appearances on the Food Network and a slew of national television shows like “Live with Kelly and Michael” further propelled the brand and his business.
Now, the hardest working guy in the pizza business — he once booked Questlove to play in his parking lot to DJ a pizza-eating throwdown named Slaughterfest — has another idea that will not only become a viral sensation, but revolutionize a restaurant staple that everyone from 8 to 80 loves …
The Mozzarella Stick.
Mad Mutz is born
Hauke, along with business partner Michael Burns, recently debuted Mad Mutz, an Atlantic City-based “laboratory” that will produce the best mozzarella sticks that have ever been made available to retailers, restaurants and direct mailed to consumers.
If you are a fan of Tony Boloney’s, which has other locations in Hoboken and Jersey City, you probably have already had some of Hauke’s mozzarella madness. Flavors that include cacio e pepe, the original Nonna with a Jersey Italian crust, black and white truffle, and the kid-adored Unicorn — multi-colored mozzarella sticks with glitter on the outside — have been offered there for years.
But, since 2020, Hauke has been experimenting with more flavors in his lab and — more importantly — how to go from making enough mozzarella sticks for his restaurants and special events like farmers markets to making them for the masses.
After bringing on Burns and making some big investments in equipment — including machines imported from Italy that can produce the quality mozzarella Hauke demands — Mad Mutz is cranking out a variety of sticks in large quantities.
How large? Eventually, they will be able to make 60,000 a day if the demand is there.
Mad Mutz will begin to distribute to New Jersey first, along with direct-to-consumer sales around the country through their website, MadMutz.com. That means a variety of Mad Mutz flavors will be available in local supermarkets for everyday shoppers as soon as Thanksgiving, and the Egg Harbor Township Restaurant Depot location on Nov. 11. They also hope to have contracts to food distributors in the state done soon, so restaurants will be able to order them directly as soon as the end of the year.
Quality first
Like any good product, it starts with quality ingredients, and in Mad Mutz’s case, it all starts with the fresh mozzarella.
And if you ever had Tony Boloney’s fresh mozzarella that is offered at Hauke’s restaurants — as well as from his farm-to-table truck that appears at markets, including Steve & Cookie’s, regularly — you know there is no better mozzarella on earth than Hauke’s.
The mozzarella is made from scratch with milk sourced from Vermont, and sticks feature a higher volume of cheese with less breadcrumbs than the standard mozzarella stick.
And everything is made fresh — including the breadcrumbs — right on Fairmount Avenue with no preservatives.
It seems like if you had one mozzarella stick, you’ve had them all. That’s not the case anymore.
“Basically, most mozzarella sticks taste the same, and it’s hard not to understand because they are the same,” Hauke said. “They all use the same low-moisture block, dry-aged, processed cheese. There’s nothing wrong with that, but they use low moisture because you can leave them in the fryer and they are durable, but they all taste the same. When people ask, ‘Why isn’t there flavored mozzarella,’ I realized the answer is easy: It’s a pain in the butt to make. So, I started making fresh mozzarella sticks and doing interesting seasonings and elevated the flavors and realized how they are night and day to what’s out there. It’s like eating fresh mozzarella. Even when they are not hot and melted, they are still ridiculously tasty.”
When you bite into a Mad Mutz stick, expect a different experience because you will be squirted with some hot milk.
“It’s not oil or water,” Hauke explained. “It’s a genuine product that produces that. We make them stick by stick and bread them one by one. It’s a 12-hour process to make a batch from scratch. We aren’t just making the cheese. We aren’t just making the breadcrumbs. We are baking the bread for the breadcrumbs. We are going overboard to do it right. It’s the only way I know how to do things. If I wouldn’t feed it to my kids, I certainly wouldn’t feed it to my customers. And there is nothing on the market that even comes close to the performance, the quality and the value.”
Why sticks?
Anyone who has had Tony Boloney’s might ask why Hauke isn’t selling his incredible pizza to the masses before mozzarella sticks, but the concept of Mad Mutz evolved out of simple demand combined with finding a niche.
“It was one of the most popular items on the menu and people would reach out asking where they can buy them,” Hauke said. “Someone would call and say, ‘Hi, I’m a food truck in Canada. Can you send me a case, or do you have a distributor?’ Since I was selling direct to consumer, I would say, ‘Sure I can send you 100 sticks.’ And then food suppliers would reach out and say they would love to carry our sticks to sell to restaurants, and supermarket chains would tell us they would love to have our product.”
Hauke admits he knows what he knows and he “certainly doesn’t know what I don’t know, so he reached out to Burns, a longtime friend, Real Estate professional and businessman for help on the numbers side of things.
“We are dealing with the big boys … some of the biggest food companies in the world, and I realized this deserves a life of its down,” Hauke said. “On top of that, I don’t think I was able to facilitate it the way it needed to be facilitated and kept up with, so I reached out to Michael. He told me what a huge undertaking it was going to be, and I said, ‘I always find a way.’ And along the way he made me realize there is no way to half-ass this, and he agreed to come on board to help on that side of things. And it’s been a great partnership.”
Burns said he was immediately intrigued by the partnership idea.
“We have been friends for a while, and he is an absolute creative genius when it comes to food, Burns said. “He is the mad scientist of the lab. I have been following his trajectory and hearing all about the mozzarella, and he was telling me about this lab and what he was doing for a while. So, when he realized it was a standalone business and he needed help, it was a no-brainer for me. And it has definitely been an intereting ride, and I think we have done a pretty good job navigating this world and have some exciting opportunities. I am excited to introduce this to the community and beyond. It’s a new appetizer category we are creating here. These are the only ones that come with all of these different flavors.”
The sticks and where to get ’em
The first way people can try the sticks is at any Tony Boloney’s location. In the next couple of weeks, people will start being able to order them online. There is already a waiting list of more than 6,000 mozzarella-hungry consumers who are ready to place an order.
Flavors that will be available to order online – and a rotating list inside Tony Boloney’s – include the aforementioned The Cacio Pepe, The Nonna, The Unicorn and The Truffler, along with other flavors such as The Gaucho with chimichurri mozzarella with a garlic and herb breadcrumb crust; The Hottie with sharp cheddar mozzarella with a spicy cracker crumb crust; The Ole’ Smokey with deeply smoked mozzarella with an herby Jersey breadcrumb crust; and The Lucifer, a scorching 10-pepper blend mozzarella with 2.9 million Scoville charcoal crust that is twice as hot as the famous Pacqui One Chip that makes people literally cry.
“The mozzarella does calm things down so it’s not as crazy as you think,” Hauke said. “But make no doubt about it … it will get you!”
On Nov. 11, the EHT Restaurant Depot will have three varieties: The Truffler, The Cacio Pepe and The Nonna. New Jersey supermarkets, including Shoprite should have those three flavors and possibly more by Thanksgiving. And, by the end of the year, those same three flavors and possibly more will likely be sold via food distributors for New Jersey restaurants.
As the business evolves nationally, so will the flavors, but Hauke already has debuted many of the future creations at Tony Boloney’s, including Dat Wiri, “Guyanese golden butta flop patty crust and Wiri Wiri peppa‘ fresh mutz with Gwan Curry Ranch dipping sauce”; Be-Hive Yo’Self with BE-HIVE vegan garlic & herb mutz with vegan pecorino and herb gluten-free crust and vegan Ole’ chipotle ranch dipping sauce; Flamin’ Hot with a Hot Cheetos crust; and the Angry Bee, a collaboration with Mike’s Hot Honey.
To use the latter one as an example of the work that goes on in the lab, the Angry Bee incorporates Mike’s Hot Honey inot the milk for the mozzarella then crystallizes Hot Honey to make it into breadcrumbs and bakes bread with the product to make even more breadcrumbs before dipping them into a hot honey batter so the entire stick tastes like Mike’s Hot Honey.
The future of mozzarella
Hauke and Burns have been overwhelmed by the positive response of everyone, from supermarket and food industry leaders to the local community.
“Across the board, the reaction is insane,” Hauke said. “They tell us the sticks are amazingly innovative and creative. Ultimately, everything comes from me, and when I bring the heat, I have to really bring the heat and do it right. We have a 2,000-square-foot laboratory making a consistent product with employees from Atlantic city. We are going to do it and spread the A.C. love everywhere.
In the future, Hauke and Burns also want to introduce the world to Hauke’s fresh mozzarella. But that’s down the road.
“The world domination of the mozzarella stick,” Burns said.
“People are created equal; mozzarella sticks are not,” Hauke added.
’Nuff said.
More information is available at MadMutz.com, or follow them on Instagram @madmutz and Mad Mutz on Facebook. Or get your mozzarella sticks at any of the three Tony Boloney’s locations, including Atlantic City. Go to TonyBoloneys.com
Scott Cronick is an award-winning journalist who has written about entertainment, food, news and more in South Jersey for nearly three decades. He hosts a daily radio show – “Off The Press with Scott Cronick” – 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays on Newstalk WOND 1400-AM, 92.3-FM, and WONDRadio.com, and he also co-owns Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, while working on various projects, including charitable efforts, throughout the area. He can be reached at scronick@comcast.net.
