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Sizzling!

Portland pizzeria becomes rock star of the Northwest

What happens when a couple of metal heads decide to open a pizzeria in a suspect neighborhood once known for heroin and prostitutes?

Sizzle Pie happens.

A major revitalization of a downtrodden surface area happens. Four stores closing in on $8 million in sales in 2015 happen. Two new locations — 1 upward the route in Seattle, another planned presently for Brooklyn (yep, as in New York) — happen.

An Independent Pizzeria of the Twelvemonth award happens.

In that location's so much happening with Sizzle Pie, in fact, that i barely knows where to brainstorm. But when you lot're taking an within await at the 2016 Independent of the Year, you accept to get-go at the first, because information technology'due south just and then darn interesting.

Mikey McKennedy and Matt Jacobson, owners of Sizzle Pie in Portland, Oregon

Founders Mikey McKennedy and Matt Jacobson were agreeing souls with a taste for heavy metallic music, nightlife, food and beverage. They loved pizza as much as the adjacent guy and figured they'd try their hands at information technology. And with their early ideas, what could go incorrect?

"Nosotros didn't have the exact thought of what nosotros wanted to do, and then we were probably being a little extreme in the get-go," confides Jacobson. "I don't know if I should fifty-fifty say this, merely our very beginning programme was to be nachos, waffles and pizza! I think it was kind of like we were thinking, 'What would be the perfect thing for the typical stoner?' Just it has panned out. Nosotros're really happy with the focus that we ended up with here."

They quickly nixed the waffles and nachos and dialed in to something a little more traditional. And then they did what any successful business owner is forced to do — they rolled with the punches and adjusted.

"We as well had the idea of doing grinders and East Coast-style sandwiches and so on, but in one case we finally got enough money to pay for the oven, which was the terminal thing, we were like 'Okay, nosotros have salads and pizza. Allow's just open and we tin add the other stuff later,' "Jacobson says. "Well, it turned out that we got really decorated, which is a skillful problem to accept. We got so busy really quickly and ultimately oasis't added other stuff considering we were too decorated to keep upward with only salads and pizza."

Though not the original intent, the super-streamlined pizza and salad approach has contributed to efficient operations and, ultimately, higher profits.

"We were so broke and so tired by the fourth dimension we opened that we decided to not try to overdo it," explains McKennedy. "It was very organic. We did write a business programme, which is pretty funny to look at now."

One time they honed in their focus, things literally fell into place. They were wildly busy from the offset.

"We wanted to do by-the-slice in detail. There are some slice shops here, but non that many," Jacobson says. "Most of the better pizza shops here are sit down-downwardly and kind of that bigger commitment, but we really loved that vibe of doing slices."

Adds McKennedy: "The landscape in Portland has always been actually competitive. At that place were and are some really great pizza spots that nosotros're huge fans of, but nosotros definitely felt like there was room for another pizza articulation. And some of the things that we liked about what ended upward being Sizzle Pie, some of our ideas, were that nosotros didn't see enough tardily-dark activity going on."

At this bespeak, information technology seems pretty necessary to interject one little fact: both Jacobson and McKennedy were pretty successful entrepreneurs earlier Sizzle Pie opened. In 1990, Jacobson launched an contained record label when he was still a teenager. That characterization — Relapse Records — is still going strong to this twenty-four hours and is a haven for metal musicians.

McKennedy, meanwhile, owned a pop bar and was making waves early by offering vegan foods. He had the foresight to projection growth within the vegan industry, and he knew that if he could somehow get non-vegans to savor vegan fare that he'd steal the show.

To exist clear, Sizzle Pie is non a vegan concept. It sells as many pepperoni pizzas — more, actually — than the boilerplate pizzeria. But it's got a vegan menu lineup that turns heads as well.

"I owned a bar downtown, and Matt and I were a much bigger part of the nightlife back then," McKennedy says. "We did a lot of vegan food out of in that location and I knew that you could have a sustainable business organisation selling vegan nutrient. Then I merely kind of wanted to practise belatedly-dark pizza. We were huge fans of the East Coast traditions, and then that's what we wanted to do."

So the plan evolved a little further: offering traditional East-Declension slices along with vegan fare. Be open late to capture a market segment no 1 else was actually going after. Go the extra mile to proceed quality high ("We're really proud of our salad dressings — they're vegan and done in house," says McKennedy). And put together a beer lineup that enthusiasts volition approve.

"That was the other large component," Jacobson says. "I was super excited when we get-go opened that we had 35 beers to choose from. That was a flag I wanted to fly. Mikey said, 'I want to make vegan food that meat-eaters love.' I said, 'I want a rad beer list.' So taking those things along with beingness able to be open late, that's actually what we wanted to achieve."

There was a piffling matter of location, though. Operating on a minor budget meant crossing a span over to Due east Burnside, a criminal offence-ridden neighborhood that was anything but desirable.

"Nosotros honey this neighborhood, but the changes were massive," says Jacobson. "This was a really bad neighborhood not that long agone."

That'southward quite the understatement, adds McKennedy: "The area used to be called 'Heroin Aisle.' It was such a gnarly neighborhood."

In fact, says Jacobson, "Burnside used to be a ii-way street with a 40 mile-per-60 minutes speed limit. The streetcar was not hither yet. It was dangerous to cross the street. There were no cross walks. This function of boondocks has actually gone through a transformation. But nosotros could feel information technology coming."

That intuition paid off. Realizing the trend in cities like New York and Charlotte and Chicago in recent years had been artist-driven — the musicians and sculptors and painters and poets picked up apartments in inexpensive areas and worked to bring a vibe worthy of revitalization — the duo took a take a chance.

"Information technology's been prissy to be a part of it and see what the area has become and is still condign," Jacobson says.

While identifying an expanse with up-and-coming potential and jumping on it early turned out to be a very skilful thought, peradventure the wisest move McKennedy and Jacobson made centered on the marketing plan. Staying true to their roots, they decided take a visual approach inspired by their honey of music.

"In the very early on days we were similar, 'Let's market this like a rock band,'" Jacobson says.

And they've done just that. Sizzle Pie tour posters, t-shirts and other materials look not similar restaurant advertizing, only like show announcements. And it'due south all done with artwork that would make Fe Maiden's promotional team proud.

"People take asked us how we've created the Sizzle Pie aesthetic," says McKennedy. "But a lot of it is just the culmination of stuff that nosotros've always been doing. Over time we've simply refined it and the art ties and music ties play in well, plainly. It wasn't like we sat down and had a list of affair nosotros were going to do (to create a culture). Information technology just came intuitively."

Sizzle Pie has brought numerous artists in over the years to contribute. From murals to logos to a unique pizza box series, it'due south always innovative and fresh.

"And that just made me realize that the more than people we brought in to contribute, the meliorate information technology was for the business," McKennedy says. "No other eating house our size actually has an fine art department who just does graphics. We're really proud of that. But early on it was just a few of us huddled effectually a computer. It'due south grown organically like everything else."

Sizzle Pie'south slogan, "Death to False Pizza," caught on big-fourth dimension and adorns t-shirts and murals alike.

"We become a lot of play off of that," Jacobson says. "It has a ring to it."

Nonetheless, at that place'south something else that rings truthful: good marketing volition get a customer in the door in one case. It's the nutrient and service that volition determine whether they come dorsum. At Sizzle Pie, they return in droves.

"Nosotros played around with the recipes a lot," says McKennedy. "In that location was a lot of trial and error, a lot of experimentation. Similar nosotros said earlier, it was important to me that we could offer some vegan food that meat-lovers would desire to swallow.

"Sometimes people consume one of our vegan pizzas and don't know information technology's vegan. They order the slice because information technology looks good. When they find out it's vegan, they can't believe it and tin can't believe they like it!"

Brandish cases in the front of the firm highlight each twenty-four hour period'south slice offerings. There isn't a set up lineup for the Sizzle Pie stores to adhere to. Instead, location managers select the pizzas they want to serve on a daily basis.

"That keeps information technology interesting and allows for different pizzas at each store," says McKennedy.

The bill of fare offers meat pies, seasonal pies and vegan pies. The "South of Heaven," for example, features pepperoni, fresh jalapenos and fresh mushrooms. The "Spiral Tap", by contrast, is a vegan pizza topped with creamy caramelized onion spread, red sauce and a light dusting of nutritional yeast. It's ane of the pizzas unsuspecting customers often choice upwards considering it looks expert, only afterwards finding out they just enjoyed a vegan dejeuner.

"I had worked in a couple of pizza places early," says McKennedy. "But neither Matt nor I had really been in a restaurant making pizza for xx years. I knew plenty to kind of just fall into it, I estimate. We had the spirit of what we wanted to do. We simply figured out how to do the things we didn't know how to do, and obviously it worked.

"Matt and I are alike in that nosotros don't really say, 'We tin can't afford to do that.' Or 'We don't know how to do that.' We say, 'How much is that going to cost? What is it going to take? Let's figure out how to exercise that.' And so with pizza, my strong arrange was in the vegan stuff. We just kind of figured out the rest."

And now the pair is moving forward with expansion plans. The Seattle shop opened in early bound and a New York Urban center location will follow, well-nigh likely in 2017. The landlord of the building is currently working through the process to modify the zoning of the location from industrial to commercial. That will probable have half dozen months.

Jumping from Portland to NYC? That's a bold and major move.

"We're ambitious, nosotros beloved the Due east Coast and we have friends out there," says Jacobson. "There's a Brooklyn-Portland connection. A lot of people in the artistic, design and coffee worlds kind of tend to become dorsum and forth between hither and there.

And so we just signed our charter for that location. Nosotros have a great spot in the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn. We went out there and surveyed the landscape and there's really no one out there doing what nosotros're doing. It's heady. It will have its challenges for sure, merely we're going into it with our eyes wide open up."

Why Bushwick? Because it's an up-and-coming surface area and the Sizzle Pie founders likes its feel and where it's going.

"It has a certain grittiness to information technology and we actually like its energy," Jacobson says. "Information technology's full of artists and it'southward the kind of neighborhood nosotros can do well in. Information technology's a good opportunity for us to test ourselves."

Jeremy White is editor-in-principal of Pizza Today.

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Source: https://pizzatoday.com/topics/people-pizzerias/2016-pizza-today-independent-pizzeria-year-sizzle-pie-portland/