The Inspiration and Creation of a pizza

Tamara: Ralph and I were eating lunch in Toledo Town Louisiana yesterday. Ralph has this thing he does with condiments. He pours some Tabasco on a spoon, salts it, eats it, then pours steak sauce on a spoon, and eats it. As we wait for our order, he takes several spoonfuls of each one... he eats condiments. To me it is the strangest thing about the man...I admit the strangest thing could be much worse!

It lead to a discussion though about our "Fire Ranch" sauce. We currently have a salad dressing or dipping sauce available that is a spicy ranch. Its an awesome blend of hot, vinegar and the coolness of ranch.  We decided that we didn't promote it enough that we needed to encourage more people to try it. That lead to deciding that the heat we use in Fire Ranch is a totally different flavor than Tabasco... and we wondered what Tabasco would be like with our homemade ranch.

We had to come back to Zippys and try it.  Ranch and Tabasco sauce topped with... hmmm... what to top it with. We tried pepperoni and gave the customers in the store a taste. It was agreed that the pepperoni wasn't very "cowboyish." It was good, but it was too much like a plain pepperoni pizza. The next pizza we tried was beef, bacon, onion and green pepper but we didn't have the Tabasco ranch right, we couldn't taste either.... so... another pizza... this one was perfect. It was the flavor of ranch,  the flavor of Tabasco without the sending you into a sweat, its a good burn, slow and mostly comes in the after burn, fresh ground beef with the saltiness of bacon a little bite of onion and the sweetness of peppers. It was perfect....  the Cowboy Pizza was born, our new pizza of the week!

Ralph: OK, here's my take on this deal. The Cowboy....just the name evokes adventure, romance, a lil spice and a whole lot of good things! I think blending Tabasco with Ranch dressing was, frankly, one of the bravest things we've done recently. It tastes GREAT and it kicks a little bit too.

About the whole 'eating condiments' thing, well, if that's the worst thing Tamara can think of that I do that's weird then that isn't too bad. 

One of our "Cowboy Pizza" test pizzas

Why do yall do all those crazy sales?

We get asked that alot because we do have some crazy sales. Last Saturday we gave away every third order. Free, yep... every third person that pulled out their wallet to pay us, we told them to put that away, the pizza was on us. We advertised it on facebook, we posted pictures of the winners on facebook... it was a fun day. But why, how do we make money by doing that???

The first and foremost reason we did it is to create orders. Twice as many people ordered pizza this last saturday over the one before. If you were contemplating eating out, and you saw that you might get your pizza free, wouldn't it motivate you to call Zippys rather than someone else? Well, we believe it did motivate people, and several of them DID get their pizza free... and we increased sales.

Secondly, it created a buzz. Really that is what it is all about.

We could have spent the actual food cost on radio or the local newspaper, it would have taken a week or more and a whole lot of hassle to get the adcopy and radio production correct, then we'd have had to wait for the lag time for customers reading and hearing the thing.

But, it was so simple to use FaceBook, let our valued customers know about the promotion there, ask them to call friends and repost and the 'I'm #3 and my pizza is FREE" promotion was a huge success, at least in terms of successful promotions in and around San Augustine.   In effect we spent the money on our customers that we would have spent on print advertising. We gave back something to our community and is that a bad thing?

Finally we do it because its FUN! Its fun to see the expressions on peoples face when we tell them they got a break today! We enjoy giving people a break... we so seldom get those in life, but, that one pizza order was free for several people that day and that was FUN!

In Lufkin we would have had a line out the door. In Nacogdoches we might have been mobbed. The idea that any business would or could give away free stuff was beyond the kin of a lot of people here, and that's ok, bless their hearts. We understand clearly where we do business and one pizza at a time, one customer at a time, we continue to bring back decent service, good food at a fair price and passion for making edible fare here. We do it day in and day out, even when the ideas dry up and it looks as if we might kill one more prson who asks, "Uh, how many slices does that pizzer have in it?"

We will, til the last 26 oz of homemade dough, the last fresh tomato is sliced, the last crumble of homemade Italian sausage is put on the last lovingly made and sauced pizza  and it's taken from our stone-bottomed oven.
We pledge to keep our ingredients fresh, most of everything we serve handmade and we pledge ot greet you at the door with a welcome smile.

Even when we dont feel like it. Even when were having some screwey sale.

Like giving away every third order.

"Hello, Zippys!  Noooooo, we cant tell you if you are number 3 on the phone. No maam, the sale doesnt work that way.  Yes maam, you actually have to order food and pay for it...AND if you are #3, it's FREE!"

Who is a Zippys Pizza customer?

I went to the Dollar General General Store last night on one of those last minute OMG, we're out of something runs and the two ladies working there, Lori and Kellie began telling me how good Zippy's food is and how much they enjoy eating here.
I stood at the counter with my handsoap, toilet paper & 20 oz cups, thinking "how nice".all this is and then it hit me, Zippys DEPENDS on these people. The ordinary working folks of this small East Texas town. The men and women who work every day and every day feed their families. 
Who do we NOT depend upon? Mostly the people in town who told us "It'll never work! A pizza joint just wont fly here in this town" Those are the same people who travel forty and fifty miles to eat a meal when they could support several perfectly good restaurants right here. Those are unfortunately the same group that has a hand in controlling who and who doesnt work, what they buy, where they go, how good the schools are and what industires and businesses come and go.
The men and women who shop here at Zippy's (there's a LOT of them! We have a GREAT busniess!) are down to Earth, solid people that struggle financially but who, by and large, pay bills and generally make stuff run in America.
So...Zippy's customers come from all walks of life. After three years here we are seeing more and more of the people who said it cant be done sneak in and treat themselves to good pizza and more. They think I aint watching them but I am!
I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone out there who understands that Zippys stands for great food at a fair price and who vote for us with their pocketbooks every day of the week.
Oh,  Lori & Kellie at Dollar General? Well, today they had lunch with us and we made their food with just a little extra pride and a few big old smiles!
Zippys
936 275 2600
Ralph & Tamara

Our Passion for Pizza

Why would anyone in their right mind be pssionate about something so ordinary and mundane as pizza?  At least the pizza we know today? The huge corporate chains that turn hungry customers into sheep. The frozen box things that bear no resemblance to anything edible. Those horrible gas station monstrosities that you just know came from a foggy, cold warehouse somewhere and were trucked in just to satisfy the palates of on-the-go gasoline buyers?

Pizza, in some form or other has been around for thousands of years. Romans cooked meat and cheese on flatbread over hot stones. Greeks did something, Im sure.
So why now are WE, here in a small Texas town so darn heated up about pizza?
Well, cause we can, that's why!
We love the smell of fresh, handmade, hand tossed dough. We like the feel of a peel full of pie steaming and ready to be cut and boxed the simple, old fashioned way.
We like espcially the sparkle in the eyes of our customers who wait for great, simple fare at fair prices and who take in long, wonderful sniffs of pizza aroma when they open those cardboard boxes and find unadorned pleasure inside.
Zippys, from day one, was dedicated to great pizza. Not necessarily fancy-pants, 5 star restaurant, only Californians would eat it, pizza, but the kind of pizza that harkens back to those days when a neighborhood pizza joint was THE place to be on a busy Saturday night. Zippys pizza makes you feel good, pure and simple and draws you into a place and time that seems to be lost nowdays.
Customer service, good old-fashioned customer service makes us different from the big chains. That~~and real, handmade dough that makes you think of Grannie's pie dough, ingredients hand selected for freshness and no MSG. A sauce lovingly prepared and spiced for that balance of sweet and savory. All this makes Zippys something special and you should expect something different about us and something different from the giant pizza chains every time you walk in our door!
We are pssionate about pizza. Our pizza, the BEST darn pizza in Texas!

Ralph & Tamara