We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jay Jerrier a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jay, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

In 1995 , my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Southern Italy. That was the first time I had ever had authentic Italian wood-fired pizza. I had never tasted anything like that in America. I was blown away by how you could taste each individual component – the yeasty fresh dough, the bright, acidic crushed tomatoes, the creamy fresh mozzarella, the fragrant basil and the fruity olive oil. It was very light, but very satisfying. I was obsessed. When we returned to the states, I built a wood-burning pizza oven in my backyard and set about trying to recreate that experience – often with disastrous results. After a lot of trial and error with internet recipes, I eventually sought out some professional help and went to a week long training class in Los Angeles to learn how to make pizza from actual Italians. After that class, everything clicked. My backyard pizzas were just like I had in Italy. From there, I bought a wood-fired oven on a trailer and towed it around Dallas doing little pop ups at wineries and private parties. We started to build up a following and began to look for restaurant space. We took it one step at a time from a delicious pizza in Italy, to a backyard oven to a trailer, to now 9 restaurants and 3 icecream shops – with several more restaurants under construction!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Cane Rosso was born when owner, Jay Jerrier, visited Italy in 1995 for his honeymoon. A former corporate exec, he had an epiphany upon tasting his first true Italian pizza and knew that he had found something special. Wanting to replicate the experience that he had in Italy, when Jerrier eventually made his way to Dallas, Texas, he had a wood-burning oven built in his backyard and trained with Master Pizzaiolos at the Associazone Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), an organization that promotes and protects the true craft of Neapolitan style pizza. Jerrier launched a mobile catering oven in 2009 and quickly developed a large and loyal following in the Dallas area and received a number of accolades from the press. Momentum grew quickly, and the first location of Cane Rosso was opened in early 2011 in Dallas’ Deep Ellum district. Jerrier and crew have since been fortunate to receive a bevy of attention, both locally and nationally. Cane Rosso has since grown to six existing locations in the DFW area, along with developing two locations of a NY/East Coast style pizzeria called Zoli’s and three locations of gourmet soft-serve ice cream shops called Cow Tipping Creamery . During the pandemic lockdown, the team launched a “ghost kitchen” to create Detroit style pizza. It became so popular that they opened a brick-and-mortar spot called Thunderbird Pies. In addition to the restaurants, in early 2014, Jerrier officially formed a dog rescue group, Cane Rosso Rescue, in order to fuel Jerrier’s passion to do all that is necessary to save the lives of abandoned dogs.

Cane Rosso’s fresh, never-frozen dough is made in-house every day, using all natural “OO” flour imported from Italy. The sauce for our pizzas is made from hand-crushed San Marzano tomatoes, and our mozzarella is pulled fresh in-house daily. Cane Rosso pizzas are thin-crust, but are most definitely not “New York style.” Neapolitan style pizzas like ours are meant to be eaten with a knife and fork and are crafted using only the highest quality ingredients available. Our pizzas are fired in our specially built wood-fired oven from Italy that reaches 900 degrees and cooks our pizzas in under 90 seconds for a delicate and light, slightly charred dough. Cane Rosso also offers a selection of pastas, salads, sandwiches, and desserts. Since opening the first Deep Ellum location, Cane Rosso has been named “Best Pizza in Dallas” by D Magazine 5 years in a row (2011-2015), appeared on The Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” with host, Guy Fieri, and has received numerous awards and honors from The Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Observer, and Eater Dallas, as well as being listed among Eater National’s 38 Essential Pizzerias in America and The Daily Meal’s 101 Best Pizza Places in America.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like everyone in the restaurant industry, we all had to pivot practically overnight in April 2020. When the government shut down all indoor dining for restaurants, we had to quickly transition to a delivery/curbside pickup operation. Our restaurants had primarily been sit down/dine in – despite being focused on pizza. Historically we had only done about 10-15% takeout/delivery. Within a 2 week time span, that switched to 100% takeout/delivery. We had to implement online ordering systems, develop take out/curbside pickup procedures, develop sanitizing routines to keep our staff and guests healthy, and expand relationships with delivery services. This happened multiple times over 2020 and 2021 as the government would open dine in capacity to 25% to 50% to 75% then back down to 50%. It was a whirlwind to say the least. We had to build out staffing models to ensure we could keep as many people as possible employed without having to do layoffs as well. Ultimately in 2020 we ended up doing about 65% of total sales as take out/delivery. We rebounded a bit in 2021 and are settling into a routine in 2022 so far. Although 2020 was a little scary, 2021 sales roared back to outpace even 2019 levels and 2022 is off to a strong start. Without a strong, flexible team – and a customer base that loved our pizza – we would have been doomed!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

From the very beginning in 2011, we were always active on social media. When we were in just our first restaurant when I was doing all of the prep and cooking, I had my flour covered laptop next to me always. I would be taking pictures and posting throughout dinner service. I took the stance that I would love to see the “behind-the-scenes” of what goes on in a restaurant to get it up and running. So that’s really how we started – by bringing people into a day in the life. We always wanted to make the posts engaging – so we used humor. Anyone that has ever worked in a restaurant can tell you there a lot of comedians in the business…so we started posting inside jokes and funny comments – well the ones that wouldn’t get us kicked off social media anyway. Our audience built slowly over time as people really seemed to enjoy our food pictures and funny stories. Our business was growing rapidly – and you will always get the occasional customer that would post a funny complaint (no ranch dressing!) or write really elaborate bad Yelp reviews. Instead of clutching our pearls over bad reviews, we embraced them and turned them into running jokes. The combination of awesome food photography on funny captions is the key to growing and engaging your customer base.

Contact Info:

• Website: canerosso.com, thunderbirdpies.com, zolispizza.com, cowtippingcreamery.com canerossorescue.org
• Instagram: @canerossotx, @zolisnypizza, @thunderbirdpies @cowtippingcreamerydfw @canerossorescue
• Facebook: facebook.com/canerosso facebook.com/canerossorescue facebook.com/zolisnypiza facebook.com/cowtippingcreamery facebook.com/thunderbirdpies
• Twitter: @canerosso @zolispizza
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJe5DiPyCv0y4UB1uA4aSsA/videos

Image Credits
Jeff Amador