We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lisa Frank. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lisa below.

Alright, Lisa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Why the name SOL Pie Pizza We are an ORIGINAL (Not a franchise). We are always surprised how many people don’t realize this was just the vision of a husband/wife team who had a crazy vision to actually care what you and your family eat.

SOL Pie Pizza is the name of our business.
We will be in business for 15 years on July 21.

The journey to this name began with a blank sheet of paper ( quite a bit, in fact)
We started brainstorming ideas, names etc. Carrying around a notepad and jotting down inspiration. My husband and I loved SOUL PIZZA and crafted Soul Pie Pizza–pizza with soul. Pie was just a fun, old-fashioned way to say “Pizza Pie” ( we don’t serve pie ) We wanted old-fashioned authenticity meets fresh and hip vibe.

As we crafted our mission statement and started creating a ban list of ingredients SOUL became SOL, which became our acronym for Sustainable, Organic and Local. These became the three pillars of our SOL-OSOPHY.

Are you ready for us to break it down?

SUSTAINABLE: OUR SUSTAINABLE MISSION

We want to make sure this lasts from your health to you legacy and our legacy.
“The Earth is what we all have in common.”

In 2012, we received a green audit through a partnership with the North Canton Chamber and Stark State Environmental Department. We were able to truly step back and evaluate our operations and become a bigger part of the solution.

Here is what we did:

All of our packaging is recyclable and/or compostable.
Eighty percent of our in-store waste is recycled.
All of our in-store light bulbs are energy efficient.
We purchase locally and seasonally to help reduce our carbon footprint.
Our meats are raised using sustainable and free-range farming methods with ethical practices.
It is our goal to purchase from farmers who engage in sustainable agriculture by not harming our environment, who produce high-quality, natural food, who take into account social consequences and uphold ethical treatment of animals.
We minimize our print marketing materials.
We are in constant search of new ways to cut waste and save energy.
And we always welcome ideas!

ORGANIC: Our Organic Mission

Serving food the way it is meant to be served. We are authentic and so is our pizza. We believe in Health over HYPE ALWAYS. And will not “greenwash” like many others do. This could mean they use “some local and clean ingredients” but serve and use GMOS and MSG. They are only telling half the story. This could also be misleading in branding where the logo conveys natural but maybe this is only for some or half of the products. At SOL we are ALL in.

We look for local suppliers with all natural farming methods because many local farmers cannot afford to become “certified.”

What does ‘All Natural’ really mean anyway? Well, it should mean what is says but, unfortunately, in this crazy game of what-is-this and what-is-that, all natural does not always mean what it should. So, let’s rephrase this—what does ‘All Natural’ mean when SOL PIE uses it?

It means we don’t use questionable ingredients, we stay away from um “natural” flavoring, caramel coloring, soy, MSG, aspartame.

Some of the local farmers we support are not certified organic so we’ll use the phrase “all natural” to convey that it is the way nature intended it to be; Non-GMO, No Herbicides, or Pesticides.

As our favorite Master Gardener, Rudy Moyer, says, “Our produce is side-free!”

That is what you will find at SOL PIE.

Our grilled chicken breast is “Certified Organic”, Free-Range Chicken which never contain antibiotics. The chickens are fed a strict, non-GMO, vegan diet.

We use All Natural, Nitrate-Free pepperoni, bacon, sausage, and ham brought to us by an ethical supplier which demands that it’s suppliers uphold the highest animal treatment standards in the industry.

We use REAL Extra Virgin Olive Oil exclusively. That means no GMO filled canola or soy oils.

Our lettuce, basil, spinach and arugula are always local or certified organic.

All of our cheeses are all natural. No fillers, absolutely no additives whatsoever.

We purchase local produce when in season.

Our ingredient list is completely transparent. We have learned so much these last 15 years and the wealth of information can be, at times, overwhelming. We get it.

We are never beyond friendly conversation to help us become better food warriors. We’re in this together!

Many of our customers are extremely knowledgeable and come to us because they trust us. This is something we will NEVER take lightly.

LOCAL: OUR LOCAL MISSION

To embrace this mission it is our duty to support our farmers, small businesses, schools, and local nonprofits in any way that we can.
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

When in season, Pegasus Farms as well as small local master gardeners provide us us with their all natural onions, green peppers, longhorn red peppers, jalapeño peppers, shallots, purple potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more.
We also get certified organic, locally grown fermented banana peppers from Papa’s Peppers. We work with “Papa” to jar these amazing gems of deliciousness for our customers to also purchase.

Rudy Moyer and his horticulture team at Pegasus Farms in Hartville grow our arugula, four different kinds of basil and lettuce regularly. In the summer we feature all sorts of interesting and delicious herbs and produce from Rudy and his team and other master gardeners in the area such as Oak Tree Hydroponic Farms.

We recently started working with Little Greens Mama to provide her delicious, nutrient-packed micro greens as well as

We purchase our organic sprouted ancient grain spelt flour from Stutzman Farms in Millersburg, Ohio.

We are always looking to create relationships with other local farmers from produce, to meats and cheeses to flour.
Please reach out to us if you know of someone or are someone who would like to partner with us!

Lee’s Bees is another partnership. We are using their raw, local honey in our spelt recipe.

We also love connecting with other local business owners such as Bohemian Mama, an all natural line of healing products. You can go to her website and pick up her products in our store.

We are actively involved in our community and care about making a difference and creating beautiful, meaningful relationships. We believe in giving back whenever we can and embracing friendships with people who are advocates of positive change in our community.

Whew… and you thought there was a simple answer.

There you have it—The SOUL behind SOL.

Lisa , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I will link the previous article I did with you guys but my husband and I are passionate about wellness and wanted to served pizza that tastes good and your body can actually digest .

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Being honest and real and always willing to make things right. We want to help our customers as much as possible and always say. “Our Kitchen is Your Kitchen”
Meaning we are transparent.

We also believe in being an asset in our community in any way possible so we have formed some amazing relationships and partnerships over the years.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We did this the old-school way. Remember this was 15years ago and banks also do not typically give loans to new businesses (and definitely not a start up restaurant)

We lived on very little, worked a lot, barely made payroll (always did!), somehow we always got by.
We did use a lot of credit card but not all debt is bad and I think we need to learn this is a responsible way.
We viewed our debt as “Invoices for Blessings Already Received.: To this day, I still write this down when I am doing the monthly budget.

Would I recommend that two 26-year-olds open a restaurant like this? Probably not.
But we did what had to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.solpiepizza.com
• Instagram: solpiepizza
• Facebook: SOL PIE PIZZA
• Linkedin: SOL PIe PIZZA
• Twitter: SOLPIEPIZZA

Image Credits
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