Operations

Spinning success: How one KC pizza brand pioneered local Neapolitan flavors

Spin Pizza focuses on its Neapolitan flavors, and it passion for both its people and its customers.

Photo: Spin Pizza

March 7, 2025 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

Before Kansas City knew the taste of Neapolitan-style pizza, there was Spin Pizza. Founded in 2005 by a team of experienced restaurateurs, Spin carved a niche by prioritizing fresh, roasted ingredients and a unique counter-to-table service model, a formula that has fueled its growth from a single Overland Park location to a beloved regional brand celebrating its 20th anniversary this May.

Spin opened in Kansas City under the helm of current CEO Ed Brownell and his partners, who have since retired. They had been partners in Einstein's Bagels as well, so the team had restaurant experience. They found a hole in the market that Spin could fill.

"At the time, there wasn't anything like Spin in the area," Carhart said. "No Neapolitan pizza places. It was kind of the first of its kind in the Kansas City area."

Brownell and his partners spent a year on research and development. James Beard-award winning chef Michael Smith designed the menu (and still consults with Spin if it is rolling out a new recipe).

Today the company has 12 corporate locations and two franchised locations in Omaha.

Guests order at the counter and then it's full service from there.

"Once you order, you sit down and a server brings you your drink refills, to-go boxes, another glass of beer or wine," Carhart explained. "They'll get you that. It's really a different service model that they wanted to try, and it's been very successful in Kansas City. People like being able to control the pace of their meals … Our servers take care of you from the minute you sit down."

Photo: Spin Pizza

On the menu

Spin sets itself apart from other pizzerias in the area by offering local fresh ingredients and instead of putting raw produce on the pizzas they opt to season and roast each item.

"When you take a bite of a Spin pizza, there's layers of flavors," Carhart said. "The mushrooms are seasoned. The onions are caramelized in the oven. Our chicken is roasted with garlic and salt and pepper and just has been marinating. We really treat every ingredient to its own seasoning and its own recipe … You can just tell a huge difference between our pizza and some of our competitors by our ingredients that we source."

The brand offers two types of handmade dough that have been perfected over the years after tweaking by Brownell to get it perfect.

"We are proud of our pizza. We are proud of our pizza dough, and we're passionate about baking," Carhart said. The pizzas are baked in stone ovens.

Salad dressings are made from scratch, as are other ingredients.

Spin's Combo Pizza is popular and features red sauce, a local Italian sausage, pepperoni, cremini mushrooms and red onions. White sauce pizzas made with Spin's freshly prepared olive oil and garlic base are also favorites. Garlic cloves are roasted in the oven with olive oil and then blended with a little red pepper and oregano. One example includes the Chicken & Goat Cheese pizza with the herbed olive oil, chicken, goat cheese, cremini mushrooms, caramelized onions and Spin's signature blend of cheeses. A chicken pesto pizza is also popular.

Much is made in house, which increases the quality of the food. "We pride ourselves on our food being perfect and having amazing service, and we want everything to be freshly made in house. There's just such a difference in taste and flavor," Carhart said.

Pizza accounts for around 70 percent of sales.

The brand is delving into Detroit-style pizza, which requires new ovens and specially made pans from Lloyds Pans that get the crust extra crispy. That style of pizza has a Wisconsin brick cheese on it.

"It's the first major product that we have rolled out in a very long time," Carhart said. "It's a big change for us and we're really excited about it. We've been testing it at our Topeka (Kansas) location for almost a year, and it's also in our Dallas locations right now. We're rolling it slowing in Kansas City. It's been a huge hit. Our guests love it."

The freezers in the restaurants are tiny and only hold the pepperoni, the Italian sausage and the gelato, which comes from a small gelateria company in Michigan.

Spin's new Detroit-style pizza. Photo: Spin Pizza

Operations

To ensure continuing as the brand grows, Spin Pizza has invested in its training program, which is spearheaded by a director of training, "ensuring that we are committed to training and committed to making sure our teams know the expectations, know the recipes, know our systems and know our culture," Carhart said.

Family is a big part of Spin's culture, and it wants to be a place where parents want to send their children to work. The restaurant is staffed by high school and college kids.

"It's a great place to work if it's your first serving job," Carhart said, "because of our different service model and being able to train and teach young people about work and work ethics. It's a really family environment. Many of our guests are family, and so it's really important for us to be a part of the community and a place where people want to send their kids to work."

Though some employees are passing through as they work their way through school, others would like to be on the management track to grow with Spin Pizza. "We have so many people who have worked for Spin for many, many years," Carhart said. "We have people who've been here since the beginning 20 years ago. I've been with the company for 13. Many of our people have been here for five-plus years, and it just shows how much people love working at Spin because we do pour into our people and in turn, they pour into our guests."

Carhart said Spin wants the guests to leave and say, "Why would I go anywhere else?"

COVID was a challenge for Spin Pizza and the brand pivoted and was one of the first restaurants to offer curbside service. Since then, the brand has invested in its to-go program. It has electric hot bags and heated cabinets to hold all of the to-go pizzas so they stay hot until the guests or third-party delivery drivers arrive.

"Our to-go has really stayed heavy since COVID and I attribute that to being able to deliver them hot pizzas even if they get stuck in traffic," Carhart said. "Your pizza is still going to be hot when you get here and hot when you get it home."

The brand switched its POS system to Revel from Aloha two years ago to utilize its cloud-based system. It also uses Restaurant 365 for inventory and accounting and Paytronix for its online ordering and website.

Carhart recommends pizzeria operators focus on their people and training first. "I think people who are struggling with operations typically have a training problem and a people problem," Carhart said, "and I think that is so important that you're pouring into your people and that you're putting them first so that we can put the guests first and help make the guests have a great experience."

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

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Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.
 
An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living. 

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