Faustina Jokl is a young new Canadian with the heart of a true entrepreneur.
Over the past three and a half years, she’s built Red Rock Pizza on Southridge Drive into a thriving local business.
“The original Red Rock Pizza is in Canmore. I worked there for over four years after emigrating from Slovakia in 2016,” she said. “The owner, Justin Way, was kind enough to sponsor my permanent residency in Canada and helped me open my own Red Rock Pizzeria here in Okotoks.”
Jokl decided to move to Canmore after visiting her sister’s family, who live there.
“Hanging out with them over the summer I fell in love with the country, the people and the lifestyle.”
She credits her father with instilling her entrepreneurial drive.
“He was always very management oriented,” she recalled. “He always knew how to talk to people to get things done."
Because of his example, Jokl said she’s always wanted to have responsibility for others and help lead them to be successful.
“I’m not afraid of speaking with people,” she added.
Her career in the pizza business started early.
“When I was 14 years old, my biggest dream was to buy an iPhone,” she recalled. “To earn the money to buy it I got a job working in my brother’s pizza shop.”
She started as a server, but one day when the cook didn’t show up for work, she told her brother that she would try it.
“Since that day I’ve been in the kitchen full-time. I love making pizza and all types of cooking.”
Red Rock Pizza has expanded to include a catering service specializing in Slovak cuisine.
“Slovakia has always been mainly an agricultural country,” Jokl explained. “Our national dish is bryndzové halušky, which is potato dumplings served with sheep cheese, fried bacon and chives or green onions.”
A unique feature of Red Rock Pizza is its kids’ play area.
“I wanted to have a restaurant where parents could come with their kids,” Jokl said. “Back home, if a family comes in and the little kids start acting up, the family will leave the restaurant, so as not to bother others. To avoid that, restaurants started adding a kids’ corner where they could quietly play while the parents enjoyed their meal.”
Like several businesses, Red Rock Pizza experienced a rough jolt in the early 2020s.
“We opened in November 2020 – the middle of the pandemic,” Jokl said. “It was difficult, but my choice was to either lay off my servers or ask people for their vaccination passports. Customers weren’t happy about that, and a lot of times they took it out on us, but I decided I wasn’t going to lay off my great servers just because people were upset.”
Now officially a Canadian citizen, Jokl is proud of what she’s accomplished.
“I love cooking,” she said, “and people can taste the love in the food I prepare.”
