We recently connected with Gabriel Baldinucci and have shared our conversation below.

Gabriel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

We differ from most fast-casual restaurants significantly in that we focus on an elevated experience that we call “fast premium”. Our customers still order at the counter and receive a table number and then have the food delivered to them by runners however, our concept differs in two main ways; First, we produce gourmet food that is typically served in full-service restaurants. While the plates are less complex and the menu is more limited, the ingredients are very high quality and the preparation is more sophisticated. This does result in higher food costs and higher labor costs due to prep. but it also means that we are able to charge higher prices and generate a higher average order value. In addition to a gourmet menu, we also spent more on the design of the store than is typical for a fast-casual restaurant. We have found a segment of the market that wants high-quality food but also wants a fast and convenient experience. We think this an emerging new category.

Gabriel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Our family has been in the pizza business in New York since 1977 when my brothers and I grew up in our parents’ pizza restaurant. While I personally left the restaurant space and pursued other careers, my brother and his wife continued to manage and own pizza restaurants their entire career in New York and Florida. When I moved to Austin two years ago, I convinced them to leave New York to open our new concept here.

It was a no-brainer to create authentic New York pizza by the slice, but we also decided to take advantage of an opportunity that we saw to bring a rare type of pizza to Austin, which is Roman style pizza. Roman pizza, which is called “pizza al taglio” in Italy, translates literally to “pizza by the cut”. It is made in large square trays and the dough is made with more water and long fermentation, creating a crispy yet light and fluffy dough that is still strong enough to hold complex toppings. As. a result, you don’t feel heavy after eating it. We import the flour from Italy and it is baked in trays and traditional ovens that are also both imported from Italy.

In addition to offering Roman-style pizza, we also offer over twenty types of pizza by the slice. For years, the pizza industry has been moving away from slices to whole pizzas. This trend coincided with the rise in Neapolitan pizza. We wanted to bring back the variety and joy that comes from being presented with a wide variety of slices to choose from. People enjoy sampling and making combinations to try without having to commit to one pizza for their meal.

Finally, our ingredients and toppings are very high quality and many of our pizzas are gourmet-level combinations. For example, our sausage and honey pizza combines serrano peppers, basil, pork sausage, mascarpone, and hot honey with our signature sauce. Another example is our fig and arugula pizza which includes caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, and balsamic glaze. We also offer gluten-free and vegan slices every day, along with salads, sandwiches, stuffed rolls, calzones, wine, beer, gelato, and other desserts.

Our guests love us because we create an experience for them that they would actually get in Italy. We had the store thoughtfully designed by Gensler with antique mirrors, pressed tin ceiling tiles, a hand-milled wood counter, green leather seating, plants, Italian music, and many other touches that transport you to Rome while you eat and drink wine. We provide an escape that in some ways is a mini-vacation from your life for an hour or even 20 minutes. We take pride in our work as a family business and we say that we only serve food that we would serve to our own family. On any given day, you can find at least three of the seven family members involved in the business working in the store.

How did you build your audience on social media?

One of the first things we did to build our social media is to have a few private dining events where we invited people who had lots of followers online. These were people who had built a brand for themselves posting about food and restaurants. We produced some great meals for them and told them about our concept and most of them went on to publish great posts about us, which lead to many of their followers wanting to try us. We did also hire a person to manage our social media and a public relations firm later on, which helped boost our followers even more. What really drives it though is consistent posting. One of the family members is now managing our social media and it is her job to ensure that we have steady content going out and that she is paying attention to what types of content get engagement from people and what types do not. You really have to have someone on the team focused on it regularly and thinking strategically about it. We even tried running contests where if you follow us and post about us online you could win a gift card. Be consistent, pay attention to what others are doing, and be creative.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

To keep in touch with clients, we thoughtfully sometimes email our clients to tell them that we miss them and to offer them a discount or free item. You can’t do this too often as people will start to unsubscribe but if you get it right you can incentivize them to come back in. We also use a loyalty program that allows you to collect points as you spend money in the store that you can use later in the store. Social media is another way that promote to our customer base when we have promotions, new product announcements, etc.

We believe that fostering brand loyalty means delivering on your brand promise well enough that people want to leave a positive review about you online and actively recommend you to their friends. That only happens if you thoughtfully design each part of your food and your experience, and you also painstakingly work to ensure that it is executed on plan every day. Most importantly, loyalty happens when you eventually do screw up with a customer and if you work to make it right for them – that’s what integrity is all about and it builds the most brand loyalty.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.baldinucci.pizza/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baldinucci.pizza/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbaldinucci/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/baldinucci-pizza-romana-west-lake-hills