We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicole Bean. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicole below.
Hi Nicole, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.
Quality and being personable. When we (most people) think of pizza, they automatically are drawn to chain pizza. The things is, all of these places started as a single “mom and pop.” They were rooted in their areas, they started making something that was different and the biggest change they made was everything. They lost sight of the real customer of making small conversations with their regulars and dumped the quality ingredients for cheaper products to make more money. There’s nothing wrong with making more money, but there is something wrong when you stop caring about the customer. Specifically the health and wellbeing of them. I source the best quality ingredients I can find for as many items I can, if not, I’ll make it myself! I can control what’s in the food and what is not (excess sugars and chemicals). I will never stop enjoying that my customers tell me they can eat an entire pizza and not feel bloated or have food guilt (because its made with real ingredients). Chains may offer promotions and discounts to make the customers happy, but what they really want is connection and knowing that the pizzeria they love and care about also cares about them too. We know our customers family and friends and often their dogs and neighbors, Im sure that dominoes doesn’t know/care that they just had a baby or adopted a new pet.
Nicole, 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?
My name is Nicole Bean and I’m a Pizzaiola, which means Pizza Maker. I joined my family’s pizza business in 2012; a year after they opened it and I initially didn’t want any part of it. My career path was fashion merchandising and when my dad called to ask for help to open a second location I couldn’t say No. Since leaving retail, I’ve grown my family’s business in unimaginable ways. We started with one style of pizza, Napoletana pizza (the kind you get in Naples, Italy). We cook it in a wood fired oven and make it as authentically as possible, sourcing ingredients from Italy and other parts of the world.
In 2015 we opened our second location and a year later I launched our second style of pizza, Detroit Style (a square pan pizza that’s about 1-1/2 inches thick). I went to pizza school to learn about other pizzas and this particular one was the next best thing! It solved many of our customers wants: more substantial crust for more toppings, crispier (than Napoletana) and bigger. It fit our niche of “odd pizza,” something we had to educate people about which what similar to when we started with Napoletana.
We upped our game again in 2017 when I announced we would be offering New York style pizza (classic American pizza). I knew when Detroit style went over well that we could finally add New York to the menu and widen our customer base. It was a no brainier at that point, we also started adding toppings to the menu that customers were looking for such as ground beef, bacon (but we decided to make prosciutto bits instead–much healthier), and home made ranch.
I took the business over from my dad in 2018. I oversee the company, handle our financials and growth of the business. It took a while to get where I am today. There were a lot of behind the scenes things happening that I did to build the business/brand and Im really happy to continue seeing year over year growth at a steady rate. We make the best pizzas in Houston and I’m proud to say that.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
In addition to the pizzerias, we also offer classes (and now consulting). It started out with my dad and I in 2017, we just wanted to share with people what it was like to make our pizzas. We offered dough making classes at first where we shared with you how to make the dough, ball it and then stretch a “perfect” pizza and how to cook it in a wood fired oven. The classes were only advertised in store for the first couple months and then when I started doing more of them, I’d advertised them on Facebook and then Instagram.
They started taking off fairly quickly with couples wanting a date night/date day. My dad quickly realized that I enjoyed it and I took over all classes and started adding more: Cheese classes, Oven classes, Pizza Making, Charcuterie, Pasta, etc.
What started as just fun and customer engagement evolved into a second business that I ended up separating from the pizzeria in 2020, launching it’s own website and class schedules.
At this point, we are heavily booked for every weekend and offering consulting for other pizza makers and pizzeria shops across the country. We’ll come out to them for a fee; we love traveling so it works! The best thing about this side hustle turned business is that we get to help people and seeing that light bulb turn on is super satisfying.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
Communication is the key to success for literally anything! Our businesses were founded by word of mouth. You only found us from a friend, sibling, colleague, spouse, or maybe a news article. Regardless, you found us from a VERY reliable source!
We didn’t advertise our pizzeria until 2015-16 and even still it was only Facebook ads. Our business was built on providing customers with an experience, not just food. I distinctly remember the first few days coming into the family business and the first thing my dad did was introduce me to customers! I hadn’t even made a pizza for anyone but myself at this point, but I knew several handfuls of customers by name, their kids and sometimes their dog (which I never forget their dog’s name).
It was/is a connection and being able to sit and chat with them over some pizza and wine is my favorite way of creating brand loyalty.
When I launched our Instagram account, I wanted to reach new people but still be able to offer that since of closeness. Customers knew that if they messaged us on social media that one of the family members (myself usually or my brother) would respond to them–quickly. It was my way of being personable and fostering a relationship.
Today, we aren’t always at the beck and call of the customers (on social media), but we are always present at our locations and we train our management and staff to be communicative and get to know the customers. They want that and people crave it–human interaction.
They more people feel welcomed and a since of belonging, the more they feel connected to your brand and the more they will support it and share it with people they care about. It’s truly a beautiful cycle.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pizarospizza.com
- Instagram: @nic.bean & @pizaros_pizza
- Facebook: pizarospizza