April '24: Saint Francis Apizza News and Reflections, Part 2
Envisioning the Future of Saint Francis Apizza (Part 2)
“Most newsletter suck. This one doesn’t” - an anonymous real reader of this newsletter
I'm the owner of the pizza restaurant Saint Francis Apizza in Cincinnati, OH. I write a newsletter most months to send out updates about the pizzeria, share my love of pizza and the travels I embark on to learn more about my favorite food, and the business behind it.
Part 2: More Energy, More Magic
“We surround our guests with great food, great energy and great experiences. The guest’s first exposure to Zingerman’s is a breathtaking experience: food, energy, excitement are everywhere. - Zingerman’s Guiding Principles
At the end of March my wife and I went to Austin, TX for a few days. On day two or three of our trip, we realized that we hadn’t yet hit any barbecue spots, and that we’d better rectify this as soon as possible or we’d never forgive ourselves. I’d been to Franklin’s and a few other best-in-class spots on a previous trip to Austin. Terry Black’s BBQ on Barton Springs Road was a short and beautiful stroll from our hotel, and we were too hungry to contemplate a two-hour-plus wait at Franklin’s.
Our experience at Terry Black’s changed my mind about how I want Saint Francis Apizza to grow. Let me explain.
Terry Black’s is one of at least ten great BBQ spots in Austin. It’s family owned, and it’s also nothing fancy. Humble space, simple decor. As with most BBQ restaurants that started small and earned a great reputation over time, it’s located in too small of a building with semi-covered outdoor seating, out-buildings that were tacked on as they got busier, and not enough parking to meet current demand.
No matter. The energy at Terry’s was electric. A line streamed out the front door, yet ingeniously Terry Black’s has added two different opportunities to order a drink while you’re waiting to order food. And the line moves quickly! We snaked past bottles of retail BBQ sauce, t-shirts, cookies, and coasters, everyone around us chattering with building excitement as we made it closer to our second ordering opportunity, drinks now in hand: the sides and desserts counter.
Having not yet seen the BBQ meats menu and also being completely enchanted by the display of sides and desserts in front of us, we ordered more than we could eat: glistening mac and cheese, made from scratch, bright snappy green beans, and maybe even the perfectly caramelized corn bread. I urged my wife to ignore the many other temptations because after all, we were here to get the meat sweats.
Judging by the enthusiasm of the adults and children talking and not whining or crying in the groups of people in front of and behind we weren’t the only ones having a good time, and we hadn’t even finished ordering our meal yet.
The ‘beertender’ at our first ordering stop (the bar near the entrance) was friendly and eager to catch us up on what to expect when we finally got our turn at the meat counter. The cooks at the sides and desserts station were welcoming and patient with us first-timers.
Bear in mind that most of the customers at Terry Black’s on any given day are tourists like us, something that hospitality industry people usually aren’t exactly fans of. Yet, there was no underlying disdain or ‘we could care less that you came here’ at this place.
I was pointing out all of this to my wife and checking to make sure I wasn’t being won over too easily with help from the IPA I was sipping, still in line, when an even kinder, smilier staff member walk up to us.
“It’s your turn at the meat counter!” he exclaimed. There were four or five meat counter stations, each with a giant butcher block at their center, the block staffed by one lead meat cutter/ordering advisor, and one assistant who could grab something from the warming boxes or weigh out a beef rib and plate it up for you.
We sprang for a little bit of each of the classics: a beef rib, a couple pork ribs coated with black pepper, a few bites smoked turkey, and of course the brisket.
“I want to throw in a couple end pieces of the turkey breast for you while you’re up here. Those ones are on the house,” the lead meat cutter said, as the assistant added yet another mass to our already overloaded plastic tray. Sidenote: Austin restaurants use freebies like no other city I’ve experienced. They were never expected, and never felt like giving us a ‘great deal.’ They were all given with a spirit of generosity, a gesture to say, ‘We’re really glad you’re here!’ Filed that one away for when I got back to the restaurant at home.
At that point we cashed out for a grand total of over $100. Beef ribs are really expensive, it turns out. Within 30 seconds of sitting at our table and digging in, we had no regrets. As I tried each of the meats, I started to giggle. How can something ’so simple’ as smoked meats be so damn good?
This feeling of giddy disbelief at the quality of Terry Black’s BBQ reminded me of the first time I ate pizza at Apizza Scholls in 2005, ice cream at Lovely’s 50/50 in 2019, bread at Tartine in 2014, or pasta at The Wheel in Oakley last week. Otherworldly flavors, yet so tangible. In your hand, or on your fork or spoon. In every case, the first bite tells you unmistakably that you’re enjoying the work of people who’ve dedicated their lives to mastering a craft.
Terry Black’s BBQ on Barton Springs Road in Austin was for my wife and me and seemingly many others that day, a food mecca. The kind of place I immediately called friends about, and quickly began making plans to return to, and hopefully this time bring some of our meat-eaters on staff at SFA with me.
The place is magic.
Aside from the quality of the cooking, the friendly service, and the ultra smooth customer experience, there are a few subtler characteristics that make Terry Black’s and a handful of other destination restaurants so special to me. These qualities are ones we will work to build into the DNA of St. Francis Apizza, some in our current iteration, but all in the next one.
Pride: everyone involved has a high degree of concern for doing things the best they can, and is gratified personally by the privilege of sharing it with guests. Pride shows up in how the food tastes, and whether it’s made to spec. But also how the door is or isn’t opened for you, and how your table is cleared, and more to the point, with what type of energy are these routine hospitality tasks done? All of us can intuit the intention behind ‘service actions.’ A family with kids walking up to the counter generates a jaded eye-roll in some restaurant environments. In others that’s genuinely viewed as a chance to introduce the next generation to great BBQ or pizza, and that’s quite an honor, in fact (!), that the people I’m so grateful to working with actually get energized by. I’m unapologetically an idealist to my core, in this sense.
Many direct interactions between staff and guests: this is why we will never put all our chips on the frozen pizza side of things, as much pride as I/we take in those. If you have the sense of pride I describe in the bulletpoint above, there isn’t much more joyful than making it for someone else to enjoy, giving it to them directly, and observing them enjoy it. For those who want me to announce something, I don’t have anything concrete, but I do know for sure that we will find a way to serve our pizza fresh out of the oven to dine-in customers. So much of the energy I felt at Terry Black’s was in what Mike Black, founder of Terry Black’s BBQ location I visited, describes as “market style customer interactions.” The pleasure of checking in with a returning regular customer, and the thrill of a new one sharing with you that they drove all the way from ____________ to try your pizza…It’s humbling, it’s an honor, and it’s a damn gratifying aspect of our craft. We want much more of it.
‘Wow’ factor/Magic: In my mind this doesn’t come from fancy chairs, fixtures, or paint. My favorite restaurants actually tend to not blow anyone away with flashy design. I learned in third grade that good writing means not overusing one word, but I can’t seem to help myself in this piece. I want the next iteration of St. Francis Apizza to have incredible energy. I envision us creating a destination pizza place. ‘When in Cincinnati, you must go here’: Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Jose Andres’ Little Spain in Manhattan, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but open to the public. Excitement each time you decide to dine with us. Great things around every counter, incomprehensibly packed in because we’re always adding and growing. It’ll be a celebration of the craft of pizza, where you can see us talented pizza makers doing our thing, and we can interact with you. Never austere or self-serious. It will be well-staffed with friendly people who’re full of pride, and it will be bustling with activity. You’ll rub elbows with pizza aficionados like you, sit near someone from out of town, and also run into someone you grew up with (this is Cincinnati after all). We’ll build a pizza emporium: multiple styles of pizza, all well-executed, and a complementary menu, including drinks, to enjoy with it.
So there was a shift in me recently. I’m either quickly losing my grip on what’s wise, or I’m feeling more comfortable being bold at this stage. There are common phrases and ways of thinking in business that used to scare me. I shuddered when a friend or mentor suggested them. At times I based my ‘business identity’ on avoiding them at all costs:
“If you build it, they will come”
“Bigger is better”
“More than one thing done really well”
“Many moving parts”
Keep in mind that almost all of the pizzerias I most admire and have sought to soak up wisdom from have only one location, are located in the space they started out in, and keep things like their offerings and style consistent and generally understated.
Also know that the most common and best advice I received — in some cases indirectly via interviews on social media or podcasts — from highly successful pizzeria owners, such as Shardell Dues of Red Sauce Pizza, Scott Rivera of Scottie’s Pizza Parlor, and most of all Brian Spangler of Apizza Scholls, is that not the best but the only wise way to get started is to take over an existing restaurant space, preferably a pizzeria but at a minimum a second generation restaurant space. That’s what I chose to do, and I can’t even comprehend the stress and potentially life-altering consequences of taking on major debt and getting out ahead of my skis.
So the future will be about threading the needle. What does it look like to build something bigger and better, with more moving parts, with a higher upside and capable of bringing a lot more pizza-related excitement into a lot more people’s lives…without losing a grip on the difference between what is…
thrilling yet reckless (don’t want that)
vs. what is…
daunting, magical, and wise?
Zingerman’s Co-Founder Ari Weinzweig is Coming to Cincinnati TOMORROW!
Ari will be speaking about his new book, A Revolution of Dignity in the Twenty-First Century Workplace, at Fifty West’s original Brewpub on Wednesday, April 17, from 6:00-8:00 pm. Tickets are a steal at $10, and even include a beer!
Learn more and reserve a spot here!
We are closing the pizzeria that night (Wednesday) so all our staff who want to can attend the event together. Much of our progress toward making our restaurant a positive, engaging and supportive place to work is thanks to what we’ve learned from Zingerman’s.
I hope to see you there!
We are open tonight and Thursday-on as usual!
