Brandon and Zane Hunt are the Co-founders and Co-owners of Via 313 Pizzeria, which serves Detroit-style pizza from three brick-and-mortar locations and two customized trailers in Austin, Texas. They are investors in Better Half, Sold Out, Lil Nonna, Parma Pizza, and several other restaurants.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Zane Hunt shares the history of Detroit-style pizza
- How Brandon and Zane Hunt co-founded Via 313 and honed their pizza recipe
- What influenced Via 313’s growth?
- The secret to a successful restaurant expansion
- Advice for aspiring restaurateurs
In this episode…
Join Chad Franzen in today’s episode of the SpotOn Series as he welcomes Brandon and Zane Hunt of Via 313 Pizzeria to discuss creating authentic products for a restaurant brand. Together, they share the history of Detroit-style pizza, the factors influencing Via 313’s growth, and advice for aspiring restaurateurs.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Sponsor for this episode
SpotOn:
Today’s episode is brought to you by SpotOn. SpotOn has transformed the merchant service industry by providing the tools and support your business deserves at a price that puts money back into your pocket!
SpotOn’s team wants to empower all of their merchants by merging payment processing with simple customer engagement tools, all in one easy-to-use platform. As a business owner, you are focused on managing your daily operations and engaging your customers. You don’t have the time, energy, or excess funds to devote to multiple complicated platforms! That’s why SpotOn is focused on helping you build long-lasting customer loyalty while saving you time and money through our all in one system.
Whether you are a merchant or a consumer, SpotOn wants to be more than an average payment processor. SpotOn aims to exceed your expectations by valuing simplicity, maintaining flexibility, and celebrating innovative collaboration. Let SpotOn help you do business the right way.
Partner with SpotOn today! Visit spoton.com today to schedule your free demo or to view SpotOn’s products. You can also call SpotOn at 877.814.4102 at any time. Let SpotOn help you make the difference with your business!
Rise25:
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.
We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.
What do you need to start a podcast?
When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.
The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.
We make distribution easy.
We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Co-founders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?
Contact us now at support@rise25media.com or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 Co-founders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show. Powered by Rise25 Media. We featured top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world
Chad Franzen 0:20
Chad Franzen here co host for this show where we feature top restaurant tours, investors and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn Series. SpotOn has the best in class payment platform for retail and they have a flagship solution called spot on restaurant, where they combine marketing software and payments all in one. They’ve served everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom and pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spoton.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help b2b businesses to get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcast. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients, referral partners and thought leaders in your space. There’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to RiSE 25 media.com or email us at support at rise25media.com Brandon and Zane Hunt are co founders and proud owners of Via 313 Pizzeria a little over 10 years ago these two brothers originally from Detroit open via 313 out of a trailer on a street corner in Austin. Fast forward to today and Via 313 serves genuine destroyed Detroit style pizza from three brick and mortar locations and two customized pizza trailers and Austin, along with another brick and mortar location in Orem, Utah, and they’re ready for more explosive growth over the next two to three years. Zane and Brandon, thanks so much for joining me. How are you guys today?
Brandon Hunt 1:38
We’re good, man. It’s so good to see and good to be here. Thank you for having us.
Zane Hunt 1:43
Yeah, likewise. Thanks, Chad. Sure. Thank
Chad Franzen 1:45
you so much. Great to have you. So just tell me a little bit more about Via 313 What can a customer expect when they go there?
Brandon Hunt 1:55
They shouldn’t be pleasantly surprised. You know, it’s I always kid that it’s got a little edge to it. You know, there’s some some rock and roll playing or some some some, you know, music that we grew up listening. And you know, you might get anybody from any walk of life waiting on you. We like to pride ourselves on being inclusive, anybody can come in, and then hopefully you’re just warmly greeted and taken care of and then blown away by the pizza. It’s, you know, I always kid like, when you go into a five star restaurant, and everything’s perfect, your expectations are so high. And I feel like sometimes when you come to a pizza place, especially a sit down pizza place, I feel like people’s expectations are a little low. And, and you know, so we should happily exceed people’s expectations. That’s always the goal.
Chad Franzen 2:45
You guys served Detroit style pizza. I know it’s kind of a wave lately. But for those who aren’t familiar, can you describe Detroit style pizza and tell me what sets it apart? Maybe from you know, Chicago or New York?
Zane Hunt 2:57
Yeah. The history. I’ll take a swing at that. So the history there is that, you know, post World War Two Sicilian families settled in Southeast Michigan. For some reason they brought their Sicilian recipes with them. Right. That makes sense. But then. So think of like what you would consider a Sicilian pizza made and sheet pans. Instead of making it in cheap pants they started making in these smaller at the time, which were automotive parts, pants that were used to hold small parts along an assembly line in Detroit, and you know, in the Big Three back in the day, right. So I again, I don’t know, there’s a lot of things that are going to be written about this probably in the coming years. I know, there’s a couple of books that are forthcoming about this. I don’t quite I don’t think any of us quite understand why they these families started well, one family in particular, started making their recipe do their pizza recipe in these pans. But they did. And, you know, that first place opened in the 1940s. A couple of employees left that original spot and opened a competitor in you know, across town. And for a long time. That was it. There were two places in Detroit that serve that kind of pizza. They didn’t call it Detroit style pizza. I know like sometimes people will be like, well, that’s, you know, nobody calls it Detroit style pizza. That’s true. Back then nobody did that. That would be like going to China and asking for Chinese food. Right? You just that’s just not something you see. But fast forward, I don’t know, say 3040 years by the 90s, which is when we were you know, teenagers. There were a handful of places serving this style pizza again, nobody calling it Detroit style pizza. And as soon as we could start frequenting pizza places, we started finding out these different places and you know, Brandon and I are pizza nerds probably is the best way to describe us. We’d like a lot of different styles of pizza. But for us, it was one from the very first time we had it. was the our favorite style pizza. And really didn’t probably, we probably took it for granted like at least I did, just how special and how unique what we do in Detroit is it took us leaving Detroit probably to realize that what we had in Southeast Michigan in the Detroit area was so special. So when we started when we moved to Austin, I moved out here in 2009. Brandon moved out in 2010. Trying to find pizza that reminded us of home, and it didn’t have to be Detroit style pizza, right, just anything that reminded us of home. And we kept running into a wall, that these things didn’t exist. I think what was really popular down here at the time was probably the politan pizza, which was just at the opening fringes of gaining nationwide notoriety. You know, I think we’re seeing more and more of that, of course, in the last 10 years, and then a lot of New York style pizza, which for us growing up in Detroit, that wasn’t really a thing either. And that’s I know, it’s I know, it’s popular everywhere, but Detroit at the time, nobody was really serving New York style pizza. So you know, we went to work on trying to take the best of the those recipes or not the recipes with the best of those flavors mouthfeel the cheese to crust ratio, the way the edges carmelized. Like we were trying to drill these different things that we liked about that style of pizza, but doing it in our own way. So we read it and I went back and forth we worked on the recipe for probably just just under a year is my guest. So we were comfortable serving it to anybody, right? We were really shy about it. And honestly a little a little concern that people wouldn’t get it. So by the time 2010 and 11 rolled around, that’s when we started working on a business plan. And we opened our first location, it’s December 2011. Specifically about the pizza though I know I’m just telling the origin story here. Think of the psyllium pizza so thick kind of earring so a high hydration dough, cheese that goes right to the edge, so you get a carmelize edge around it as opposed to just a bready edge. sauce goes on top. It could be before or after the bake. It just depends on where you go. There’s different different opinions about that we do ours after. And then you know, a lot of times the meats like sausage, at least in Detroit sausage, pepperoni would be under the cheese. We just do kept running out of the cheese, the old fashioned, the kinds that lay flat, right? Natural or not the natural. I’m sorry, that smoke pepperoni natural casing goes on top. That’s how we do it. But yeah, that mean, that’s essentially it. And of course, you know, since we started doing this in 2011, there have been a number of people that have come after us that are that are opening, more, you’re starting to hear the word Detroit style pizza thrown around a heck Pizza Hut did that, you know, a couple of different times in the last two years. So it’s, you know, it’s getting national attention. I think it’s it’s really growing in popularity, and people are starting to become more aware of it. And I mean, it’s a it’s a it’s a piece of our childhood. It’s in our DNA. So it makes us really proud to see it, getting it. Get national notoriety, so to speak.
Chad Franzen 8:08
Yeah, you guys, you guys were growing up in Detroit. While you were in Detroit. What did you have experience in the pizza industry in terms of like a service or cooking standpoint? Or were you just a big connoisseur?
Zane Hunt 8:19
Well, both really, I let Brandon tell his little story about and I want to say a little story. It’s a big story. But, you know, we grew up in a house our mom raised us from a young age single mom, and she had a really limited palette in terms of what she liked to eat. And because of that, we eat a lot of pizza. Plus, there’s a lot of pizza in Southeast Michigan in general. So we ate a lot of pizza growing up. Our my first couple jobs were in pizza, Brandon’s first couple of jobs are probably in pizza, mom and pop shop places, you know. So I mean, we had a lot of exposure to it. Not not necessarily this style of pizza, but just the industry itself. But you know, and when I went to college, I left. I left the industry for a little while, but then circle back to Brandon has been in the industry since he was probably 14 years old. Oh, well.
Brandon Hunt 9:12
We don’t need to do the math, but it’s been a while.
Chad Franzen 9:16
So you guys, what brought you guys to Austin and then kind of you talked about a little bit about how you saw that there was a bit of a void in terms of what you were used to tell me a little bit about more, a little more about, you know, the beginnings of Via 313 and how it had Via 313 how it got started.
Brandon Hunt 9:34
Whoever would take that room. Yeah, yeah. You know, he moved to a year before I did. You know, I can’t speak for why he wanted to move. But we growing up we were always super close. I always you know hung out together works together and a lot of jobs. So when he left was a big void for me in Detroit. I was managing a bar back there that for He was kind of ran, it’s time, you know, I was getting older and the bar stays young. So it was time to kind of figure out what I wanted to do next out of the bar business. And with him down here, it just made a lot of sense to, I don’t know, reinvent myself, see a change of scenery. You know, I’ve been at Detroit for 30 years. So just wanted to see a different city, get out of the winter, obviously was a huge thing for me. And, you know, just get a new experience. So, and then I don’t know, I think almost a year later, we opened the trailer after I moved here, after a couple jobs that I went through.
Chad Franzen 10:40
So you guys, you guys kind of went back and forth on a recipe you found one that you liked, what were the earliest early days, like, you know, just kind of operating out of a trailer.
Brandon Hunt 10:51
Yeah, it’s funny is it didn’t happen that fast, I was still at the bar, making recipes and giving them to customers at the bar, and he was up here or down here making pizzas. And you know, if you never had the pizza, people were very kind like, this is the best, this is great. But we weren’t getting like, we wanted people to like really critique it, but against the Detroit style places that we grew up eating. And it just never was quite there in our opinion. But then when we when I got here, and we started cooking for, for people from Detroit, or family members from Detroit, they would all say that, this is it. This is real close. This is good. You know, so the first we opened the trailer December and you know, wasn’t very busy. Right out the get go, I think we were doing $200 days, which would be about 15 pizzas a night, you know, so it was real slow, we’d sit in the bar, because we’re our trailers attached to a bar. So we would sit in the bar and watch movies a lot of the nights and just dip our head out the door and make sure nobody was standing in front of the trailer. And they were there were some long days, I mean, I would work. Get up at noon and shop for the day, because we weren’t busy enough to get a truck. So I go run the grocery store run to the food distributor, because they wouldn’t want to bring it to us, we had to go pick it up and start prepping for the day open, you know, four or five work to 123 in the morning sleep. And just kind of repeat that every day. But you know, it sounds worse than it was it was so energetic. It was so positive. There was so much good feedback from people. You know, my brother, he was working a day job then coming in at night and closing the trailer down with me and then waking up early every day, starting with the day job all over again. But you know, it was grueling, but I don’t know if I would change anything about it. It just shouldn’t be working for someone else looking for a job. It was just it was always I mean,
Zane Hunt 12:49
yeah, I want to I want to echo his feelings on that. It’s interesting in hindsight, when you look at how many hours were put in, and how long the days were, how demanding it was. I don’t think we ever stopped and thought about that. In the moment. It’s only in hindsight, do we think about it like that in the moment, it was an that was a massive adrenaline rush. I don’t ever remember complaining about it. I know. It’s just like you just put your head down and you put one foot in front of the other and you move forward. And it feels great doing something for yourself. And that’s really, I think that was driving this is like what we’re in. We’re in the driver’s seat. We’re driving our own bus, so to speak here as opposed to just doing it for somebody else. And Brandon’s right, I had a day job. That was pretty flexible, but it a lot of it was sitting at a desk at that point. I was in it. I was doing support supporting engineers that were on site, and I could work from home. But there’s a huge difference in sitting at a desk, looking at a computer or being on the phone versus being in a restaurant or food trailer at that time and talking to every single customer about something you created and the joy that we got from that the the energy we got from them. I mean, it’s indescribable. Honestly, it’s, it’s, it was really a thing of beauty. For me.
Chad Franzen 14:07
Sure. Sure. You talked about it being a little bit slow. When you first started, Brandon, what? What do you think was a contributed to popularity building or the growth? You think it was just kind of, you know, you guys were just there and people started to notice you or was there something more than that? Yeah,
Brandon Hunt 14:24
I think being we’re at the right bar and the right side of town at the right time, for sure helped bringing a different style of pizza to town. It was still, for as many people that live here was still not a ton of pizza options for Mom and Pop pizzas. So it was a different pizza option. And I think the bar was so low out of the trailer. Again, I kidded at the beginning about the Barbie and lo when you go sit down in a pizza place it was even lower for a trailer. The fact that we were open the hours that we said that we were going to be open people would brag about that, and you know, and then the pizza, you know, hopefully back that up was like, it was definitely all word of mouth organic. We were so slow, we would just make pizzas and run them to bars, barber shops, tattoo shops, anybody that was in front of people, and try and get them to be like, Man, you should go check this place out that opened up down the street. We weren’t doing anything anyways. So we kind of had to do some guerilla marketing to get get the sales up over $200 a day.
Chad Franzen 15:28
How did the first brick and mortar location come about?
Zane Hunt 15:34
Yeah, that’s, that’s funny. So we at this point, we had been, we added. So we did the first trailer in December of 2011. About a year later, I mean, not quite a year, maybe it could have been a little over a little under, we added a second trailer and put it in a different part of town attached to another bar. The idea there being it would give us two sources or two streams of revenue, not a lot of revenue, but enough to where we could start to really save money. So we can we can put our money into a brick and mortar, which is ultimately what we were after to begin with anyway, was having a restaurant. And having two different locations. It’s it forced us to spread out a little bit my brother and I so we weren’t always together. And it allowed us to also force, you know, forced our hand on coming up with early procedures and processes, and starting to document things which prior to that we really weren’t doing that force. So it was a good, like a training wheel moment. I think for us. I look back now. And I know we’ve printed I’ve talked about this, I can’t imagine with a lack of ownership experience that we had. Now we have some restaurant experience, but not owning a restaurant. I can’t imagine us never opening a trailer and just opening a restaurant right from the start. I don’t know how that would have went. I mean, maybe it would have maybe would have been okay, over time. But then having those two trailers. It’s I think it played a huge role in our success. We were out there our brand became something that people were aware of. We were I don’t know if you’re top of mind, but at least we were on people’s minds. People knew who we were. So fast forward about, I’d say I think was 2015. Probably around Christmas, I went out there’s a burger place near my house. And we were just going to get some carryout burgers for the family. And I go out and the burger shop is that we usually go to is closed, there’s a sign on the window, saying that they were evicted. And I thought, Man, this is an underserved neighborhood. We this is my neighborhood. It’s underserved on almost every front. And there’s a lot of disposable income because there’s a lot of people that live out here and it doesn’t have a lot of options. So I brought it up to Brian and I said there’s a place over here that, you know, it’s kind of a sleepy shopping center. But some of the tenants that are in there have been there for 20 plus years like the restaurant, there’s a Mexican restaurant for it. So they’ve been there 20 years. I thought man, if they could do that, then I you know, maybe maybe we can give this a go. And it’s interesting because at that point, Chad, we were essentially thought of as a downtown brand. We had two trailers that were pretty centrally located. And now we’re venturing 10 to 15 minutes outside the city. So it’s almost it’s still Austin, but it’s suburban, basically. Right. So we took a look at that spot. We ultimately we didn’t take that particular restaurant, we took one that was in the center that ended up taking over for that Mexican restaurant because they had built their own spot, and we’re moving. So we took over their spot, we did a small remodel on it on a basically a shoestring budget. And we opened up in April of 2016 on that one. And you know, because I mean, again, I think one of the things that we if we talk long enough, Chad, you’d hear come up over and over again, is this lack of confidence. We even though we had two trailers that were doing well, we still weren’t sure if we opened a restaurant, particularly down in my neck of the woods in southwest Austin. If people would even show up we actually were concerned it wouldn’t be that busy. And so we go to open the first day we were only evenings only. And Brian and I are in the restaurant. And you know, we I think we’re open at five o’clock or something and we look outside there’s a line stretching around the entire shopping center. And we had that, you know, there’s 80 seats in the restaurant, we had all 80 seats sat within 15 minutes on our first day. Well, you know, we look at each other we’re like I think you know this is going to be okay, now we got to adjust the demand. Now we’ve got now we’ve got to think, you know, how efficient are we? Not various the Instagram.
Brandon Hunt 19:38
Just to put it into perspective, I was paying myself 250 A week cash and he wasn’t even paying himself for I don’t know what you said the first year and a half, almost two years. First couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like it was great to get the restaurant open and put ourselves at least on a salary that we could live off of. Yeah, who Who would have thought we didn’t think it would open like that?
Chad Franzen 20:02
Were there some things that you guys learned? Kind of, you know, you mentioned? You’re glad you started out in trailers and not directly in a brick and mortar location. Was there anything that you guys learned from that first brick and mortar location that really propelled you toward where you are today?
Brandon Hunt 20:21
Well, don’t seat 85 people all at once in the first year, we learned maybe we space it out a little bit. You know, for sure, you know, one of the problems with that location right now is, it doesn’t have a true dedicated carry out spot. You know, because it is busier than we had planned on being. So you know, the new the newer locations have dedicated carry out spots, you just get better at laying them out, get more efficient. If nothing, you just get better systems. You know, that’s really the biggest thing. And I think we got, we had a little bit of leeway when you go from a trailer to a restaurant, I feel like people were like, well, it’s the first restaurant given, give them a minute to figure it out. Where if you just open a restaurant, people expect it from the get go to be correct as they should. But I think we got a little bit of leeway for the first brick and mortar coming out of the trailers.
Chad Franzen 21:18
When did you know that you were ready for expansion beyond that one brick and mortar.
Brandon Hunt 21:23
Man, I would say almost that first year, it was just non stop. And we’d always kept looking for ways to take the heat off the restaurant a little bit. Because that place is pretty maxed out space wise. So we took about another year, and we did the second one up north. And you know, we fell victim to that twice the square footage, we’re gonna make twice this twice the amount of money. And that’s just not true. That’s not how it works. But we learned the hard way. It’s still a great restaurant, it’s just not twice the volume that you think. And then I think we took about a year and a half after that, to do the our third restaurant. So it was pretty fast. You know, it was five locations and six, six and a half years, seven years.
Zane Hunt 22:14
And it’s interesting there. I think that you know, we have friends and family that are not in the industry. And I think that they sit on the sidelines and there’s they are shocked by what we’re able to put on our shoulders is well, that’s the way they see it. But of course we both know, we all the three of us know that it’s really about people, it’s just about having teams, and about having good people that work with to work with you can’t grow like that without great teams. And we’ve been very fortunate over the years to work with really, really good people. And those people have made us better and have allowed us to grow the way we did. Because I think you know, I don’t it’s crazy. When you look, we were opening at such restaurants at such a frantic pace, that it would make some people’s head spin. But it to us it felt like the right thing to do because we were rising to meet demand, the demand was there. And if we’ve got the team in place, we knew we could do it. That’s that’s what we did.
Chad Franzen 23:09
I was just gonna ask you, what do you think is the key to successfully expanding a restaurant brand? You know, Brandon has talked about system systematizing. And he talked about people think those those two are the primary keys to kind of keeping things consistent and high quality.
Brandon Hunt 23:25
Yeah, I mean, for us, thankfully, we never took on any debt. I think that that idea of debt seems very crippling, I think that stunts a lot of growth for for brands, but we were we were fortunate that we had good investors, and were able to pay them back pretty quickly off the performance of the restaurant. But yeah, I mean, you can’t grow without good people. There will always be the pinpoint
Chad Franzen 23:49
How has COVID affected or changed Via 313 If it is
Brandon Hunt 23:58
it’s it’s tough, you know, with everyone and I would say we’re one of the fortunate ones because pizza actually held strong for the last two years with with carry out. But you know, really, it just tried to take it day by day, you know, with the different variants and the different ways to handle it. We try to just follow what the CDC says and try not to get too you know, our personal feelings wrapped up into it too much because everybody has their own feelings but it’s you know, I just tried to take it day by day. It’s super challenging, obviously, for everyone.
Zane Hunt 24:37
It’s tougher in the early days we I feel like we did a really good job staying ahead of things like we went to a carry out model only material out only model I should say before the city or the state or the country started putting, you know, kind of shutdown mandates in place or whatever. So we were the among the first to do that and Austin. And I think our customers really respected that. And we stayed that way for about a year, we were probably one of the last restaurants to open our dining rooms up. And then of course, the last shift the last six months or something, I mean, with the Delta variant, and then this, there’s no Omicron variant, it’s things are spread out, you know, this new variants spreading faster than the other ones did. So, so now we’re scrambling to stay on top of that. So it’s tough because things change so fast, and the guidelines change so fast. So we, it keeps us on our toes. And, you know, we’re not we’re not we’re not disease experts or you know, you know, we don’t always know the right thing to do, but we try to take advice to people that do and keep an open mind about it, but it’s very challenging like Brandon said,
Chad Franzen 25:49
I mentioned in your introduction that you have some big plans for growth coming up in the next few years. Can you talk about some of those plans? I know you’ve already you’ve already expanded to Utah so tell me how that’s going and then maybe talk about some some other plans
Brandon Hunt 26:06
Yeah, I think arm was It was eye opening get out because Austin is just a totally different market and we knew going to Orem was going to be a different different set of rules but you know it’s funny because Sunday’s are such a happenin day here in Austin and Sundays in Orem Utah are not you know, it’s it’s it’s time to relax day for for for most of Utah, it seems. And so it’s been an adjustment to learn the different flows. But I think overall reception has been really positive and great. We’ve seen a lot of return customers sales are slowly building so that’s great that it’s not just an anomaly, right? It can work in a different city. It we’re getting some great feedback. So as far as on the future, I think we’ve got you know, obviously, construction and cities and a lot of things got to fall into place but I think we have 12 on the to do list this year. Wouldn’t be surprised if it settled closer to eight to 10 but that’s that’s on the to do list. Mostly Austin some more in Utah Salt Lake area. One in Vegas one in Denver. Is that is that it right now are
Zane Hunt 27:22
in San Antonio and yeah,
Brandon Hunt 27:25
we’re looking at different markets, Phoenix Scottsdale areas Kansas City area you know, just trying to keep the pipeline full and options open.
Chad Franzen 27:36
Sounds good. Do you do you guys each have a favorite type of pizza that you it’s kind of your go to type or flavor or whatever you call it.
Brandon Hunt 27:46
I I’ve been in the bar style, which is our other style that we added to the menu after we opened the first restaurant just to have a round option in Detroit you either get round or square pizza. So we thought this would be you know a nice I don’t know value play I guess a little bit too it’s a couple of bucks cheaper to anyways. I hate the bar style more now than the Detroit style myself. But the five cheese for me five cheese.
Zane Hunt 28:18
Yeah, as far as your I don’t even know how to answer that yet. I it’s probably a five way tie. I say that. I like I like old school, like mid century hand tossed pizza that came out of Italian restaurants. Like first generation Italian American restaurants. You know, like the kind of place that we’ve served spaghetti and pizza. Like I like the pieces that come out of those places. Kind of something that is starting to die off as people age and their families don’t take over restaurants from them. You’re starting to see less of that. I like a good grammar style when it’s done. Right. I love a good Sicilian. I love a good Detroit style. Yeah, I’m like Brandon, I mean, I love a good tavern or bar style pizza too. So I like there’s very few kinds of pizza I don’t like how about that?
Chad Franzen 29:10
Okay, yes. Well say with me.
Zane Hunt 29:13
I’m like Richard Linklater, who wants to sit. I like music. That doesn’t suck. I like pizza that doesn’t say that’s
Chad Franzen 29:20
perfect. You know? Perfect. Yeah. I have one more question for you. But first, how can people find out more about Via 313?
Brandon Hunt 29:29
Yeah, we’re on we’re on all the all the stuff. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and then Via 313.com.
Chad Franzen 29:38
There’s a picture of a pepperoni pizza on there. If you want to get hungry looking at
Brandon Hunt 29:42
that. Yeah, yeah, I think the Instagram photos that honor our social media guy with consumable content and if I can plug him but man that was photos that he takes the cheese poles and they are it’s pretty, pretty awesome shots on the Instagram.
Chad Franzen 29:58
Last question, do you guys have have any advice for aspiring restaurant tours maybe that you might wish that somebody had told you before you guys got started.
Brandon Hunt 30:10
I like one just doing it. I wish we would get started sooner. Again, that was a confidence thing for us. Starting small, I think that was pretty big for us to start small and kind of get the speed of the flow of everything and how we want everything to operate. But really, it’s just doing it believing it. I don’t like being the pull yourself by the bootstraps, because everybody’s got different stories. But you know, we did have to work two jobs and take a huge pay cut both both of us. So there’s a bit of sacrifice that comes along with that I feel just be willing to make that sacrifice a little bit.
Zane Hunt 30:59
Man, Brandon, you probably said 90% of what I would say. He left me scraps. I’ll take a swing I what I’m left with is a thought and I and we say this a lot. Chad is you know, Brandon touched on it with that bootstraps comment. I think that gets it’s a nice soundbite. But the reality is, I don’t think you can really have success in this life without help. And you can’t I think ego gets in the way a lot of people’s egos get in the way of asking for help. Or maybe lack of confidence to write could be either. But man, we we’ve tried really hard to surround ourselves with good knowledgeable people that know more than us that know that are more well rounded than we are and can just be quiet and listen and learn as much as we can. That has allowed us to have quicker growth and quicker success than I think we would have if we were on our own.
Chad Franzen 31:53
Okay, yeah. Yeah, go ahead,
Brandon Hunt 31:56
Bill. Just a feed off that. You know, again, every step along the way we’ve reached out to someone that is doing what we want to do and ask for some advice. And at least in Austin, everybody’s been extremely helpful in an open book with advice.
Chad Franzen 32:13
Hey, it’s been great to hear your stories and your insights. And I’m really hungry. Now. If you guys come to Denver, I’ll be one of the the 85 people standing in line for the first day. It’s been great to talk to you guys. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, Chad. Thanks for having us. Chad. Thank you. So long, everybody.
Outro 32:30
Thanks for listening to the Top Business Leaders Show. Powered by Rise25. Visit rise25.com to check out more episodes of the show and to learn more about how you can start your own podcast