Pizza Today - May 2019 - 47

"Our meetings are spent talking
about people, not pizza," Brandon
says. "Our days are spent 'how can
we build everyday customers?' That's
a testament to the brand now. We
have raving fans. We haven't spent
any money on advertising. It's all
been trying to provide a five-star
atmosphere, whether that be the
first-timer welcome, dumdums
when you're done, having a server
that might be intimidating looking
but ends up being the most pleasant
person that you've met. The focus is
customer service. It's about taking care
of people. 'The answer is 'yes. What is
the question?' We've kind of modeled
it after that a little bit. Nobody should
be saying no to anything."
THE HUNT BROTHERS HAVE THEIR
SIGHTS ON MORE GROWTH, EVEN
OUTSIDE OF THE CITY. "I think that

they wanted to offer another style. They toyed
with the idea of going Neapolitan but too
many Neapolitan spots were popping up locally.
A trip to New York (well, a side trip to New
Jersey) sealed the deal when Zane and Brandon
tried a bar pie at Star Tavern. "We had one of
the better pizza experiences of our lives over
there," Zane says. "We devoured that pizza
in like two minutes. Let's just do this? There's
not really anybody doing this." Today, bar pies
make up roughly 15 percent of pizza sales.
THOUGH MINOR TWEAKS HAVE BEEN MADE,
THE PIZZA IS BASICALLY THE SAME AS WHEN
THEY STARTED. As Via 313 has solidified its

food hold in the Austin market, Brandon says,
they've built a leadership team to focus on dayday-operations. "We have so many layers now
where we have operations people, team and
tech director...," Brandon says, adding that
the challenges faced today are eased with the
leadership team.
It also has freed up the brothers to target
those aspects to help the business flourish and
the often-overlooked things that can drag
a restaurant down. They've added employee
programs to recruit and retain their eclectic
team with a 40-hour max work week and
incentives like insurance, cell phone plans and
paid vacations.

if we very carefully choose the right
locations, it would be great to be
one more spot in north Austin,
something that doesn't cannibalize
what we have going here at campus
or east side," Zane says, "and then the
north part of San Antonio."
Brandon adds, "We're staffing
up our upper management to
comfortably do that."
Amidst all of Via 313's success,
there is a lasting impression that
resonates of just how humble Zane
and Brandon are. "Part of it is who
we are and where we come from,"
Zane says. "We learned a certain
way of doing things. For the most
part it's put your head down and
move forward. You don't dwell too
much on what you just did. You don't
celebrate too much. We're not too
good at those things. I think a lot of
time people will try to compliment
us and we'll divert the conversation.
Anniversary parties come up and
we're like, 'It's just another day; we
have to keep moving forward.' It's
great that we've made it this far, but
let's keep going." n
DENISE GREER

Pizza Today.

is Executive Editor at

M AY 2 0 1 9 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / 4 7

http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

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