Imagine finding yourself in the middle of a global pandemic, stuck in a new city with nothing but time on your hands and surrounded by a whole lot of great pizza places.

That’s exactly where Dakota Greer, better known as “Apizza Guy,” found himself back in 2020.

A nurse by profession, Greer had taken a contract right outside of Boston. With the world on lockdown and his usual activities on pause, Greer started diving into a new hobby—reviewing pizza.

Inspired by watching Dave Portnoy’s popular pizza reviews, he started making his videos and posting them on his personal social media.

Returning home to Mississippi after his eight-week contract, he was determined to bring that same enthusiasm for pizza to Oxford. However, he quickly realized that the pizza in Oxford didn’t quite compare to what he had experienced up north.

This realization drove him to taste-test every pizza place in town, reviewing them and ranking them on a 1 to 10 scale.

After hitting up just about every pizza place in Oxford, Greer expanded his reviews to all kinds of foods at restaurants in Oxford and around north Mississippi.

With growth, however, came some unexpected challenges. He began receiving pushback from people who didn’t always agree with or like his reviews. However, even those unpopular opinions helped to grow his audience.

“I reviewed the only pizza place in Bruce and I just didn’t think it was good,” he said. “I gave it a 4.1.”

Greer said he soon started receiving threats from people.

“I had about 1,000 followers on Facebook at the time and that video got about 300,000 views,” he said.

Today, he has 10,000 followers on Facebook.

“That was four years ago and I still have people threatening to fight me over that,” he said with a chuckle, adding he may return soon to Bruce to see if things improved.

Greer, 30, is often joined by his 2-year-old son, Draken, in his videos, who also loves pizza.

“Yeah, that’s been a lot of fun,” Greer said.

Greer said he is not afraid of being honest about his reviews but also likes to remind folks that it’s just his opinion.

“People won’t always agree with me,” he said. “Everyone has different tastes. But being honest is crucial. My reviews won’t make or break a business but if a restaurant is messing up or they’re doing something wrong, and you don’t tell them, they’ll continue doing things wrong and could go out of business.”

Greer said he has no real long-term goals other than having fun and eating – mostly – good food with his online reviews.

“But hey, if someone wanted to give me a T.V. show, I’d gladly travel around reviewing food,” he said smiling.