Food & Beverage
ZaLat: How 'stoners' + simplification built a better pizza brand
A one-time corporate attorney and software business owner moved into the pizza trade to find his true professional passion, as well as a new appreciation for a very hard day's work.
October 14, 2020 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group
Around Dallas, the unusually named, ZaLat Pizza, has a bit of a reputation as a "stoner" pizza joint. And despite what you might think, the brand's founder and CEO Khanh Nguyen is totally okay with that.
No, he wasn't a little high on the calm-inducing weed when we asked him about that, rather Nguyen figures his pizza place came by all that "stoner love" in the way a great pizza brand should — through customers' stomachs. Plus, he said it helps that some ZaLat locations are open until 4 a.m. when many customers are wrapping up a night of partying.
"Because our stores have always stayed open late — often very late (4 a.m.) — and our pizzas are so different with such bold flavor combinations, we were immediately adopted by the after-hours party crowd and the '4:20' (marijuana) crowd," Nguyen said in an interview with Pizza Marketplace. "So, we are perennially mentioned in everyone's 'stoner' or '4:20' favorites lists. It's not core to our mission, but it's not something we disavow either.
"America is migrating towards legalization state by state, and we have pizzas ready for you. Our pizzas are delicious at any hour of the day and night, and they are mind-blowing if you have the munchies — so we have been told."
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| ZaLat CEO Khanh Nguyen. (Photo: ZaLat) |
Much like his brand, Nguyen comes across as a very affable fellow, but charm alone never built a successful restaurant brand. Nguyen has worked hard at building Zalat into the venture it is today.
With nine stores in the sizzling hot Dallas-Fort Worth restaurant market, ZaLat is the kind of funky pizza brand born out of its founder's equally funky and variegated background. The restaurateur has in the not-too-distant past been a corporate attorney, the owner of a software business, founder of a Vietnamese restaurant and part of a Texas family with roots going back to South Vietnam.
In fact, it's from Nguyen's first foray into the restaurant trade, as owner of the Vietnamese brand, DaLat, that his current pizza chain, ZaLat, got its name. And though the two restaurant concepts menus are vastly different in substance and volume, Nguyen believes his lifelong love of Vietnamese cooking does crossover into his life as a purveyor of pizza.
"There are usually not parallels between Vietnamese cuisine and pizza, but I think there are parts of how Vietnamese people approach food design that I have brought over to my design of the Zalat Pizza menu," he said.
"Vietnamese food at any level — whether it be home cooked meals or fancy restaurant cooking — involves tremendous complexity in the design of the flavor and texture profiles, but the final results are usually presented without much fanfare. … I have approached the design of our ZaLat pizzas the same way — extremely complex flavor combinations presented in a casual and approachable fashion."
In fact, that "approachability" seems to be central to both ZaLat and the man behind the pizza brand. It's a quality that wouldn't immediately seem to fit with his former life in corporate law. Indeed, Nguyen will be the first to tell you that part of his background has probably contributed the least to his success in the pizza trade.
"I would say it (corporate law) has almost nothing in common with this," he said, referring to his current life as a restaurateur. "It's just a completely different animal.
"I am really absolutely in love with this industry that I kind of accidentally fell into. But folks who have not worked in this (restaurant business) just have no idea how different it is. Like when a restaurant gets (over-run with customers) and you're in the weeds and what happens in the kitchen and how you still get a customer to come back. ...You're really herding cats in terms of all the variables that you have to deal with. … So they just have actually zero idea of how difficult it is to manage and run a successful restaurant."
When it comes to getting a good idea of all that though, Nguyen is unequivocal: His time at the helm of DaLat was the quickest, perhaps scariest and certainly most impactful teacher he could have. In short, DaLat taught him that doing a restaurant brand well meant doing away with as much complexity as possible.
As a result, the menu at ZaLat is about doing a few things well, a.k.a. simplicity. And although the brand does a fusion take on Vietnamese-inspired pizza with its Pho Shizzle pie, ZaLat is mostly committed to what many Americans love: pepperoni.
"Despite the fact that we have so many novel and beloved specialty pizzas … 40% of our sales come from our standard pepperoni pizza," Nguyen said. "We are very proud of this, as it affirms that we did our jobs well in elevating the ubiquitous pepperoni pizza to new heights."
True customer commitment: 'I hate this place because of how much I love it'
Now lest you think this is all owner hype, we asked around, and it was clear that the Dallas-area's devotion to this brand is both sincere and strong. Just listen to some of these accolades ZaLat customers offered to Pizza Marketplace.
"(It's) the only true New York-style pizza I've had in Dallas," said a customer named, Donna. "Made my day — born and bred New Yorker (and) I had given up on pizza entirely in Dallas. I wish I'd found (ZaLat) a year ago. I folded my slice and felt home."
Her sentiments were echoed by Grace, a particular fan of the brand's Pho Shizzle pie, featuring a swirl of hoisin and sriracha sauces.
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| Photo: ZaLat. |
"I hate this place because of how much I love it," she told Pizza Marketplace. "I have never had better pizza. It's beautiful. It's delicious. It's edible art.
"The Pho Shizzle pizza makes me feel loved, like nothing is wrong in the world at that moment: The pollution is gone, the polar bears are safe and the wars are over, when I'm eating this pizza."
A business model that depends on employees
Still, even though Nguyen may be one of the industry's stronger proponents for keeping the number of menu offerings lean, his approach to employee benefits is the opposite. In fact, ZaLat is one of those relatively rare restaurant brands that has figured out a way to offer full benefits to its employees, along with eligibility to receive equity in the company via stock options.
"Our whole business model depends on our employees putting love into our pizzas and in how they take of our customers: We cannot be successful on those goals unless we take care of our people in return," Nguyen said.
"While other brands view their front-line workers as fungible, minimum wage-plus staff, we view our front-line workers as the most essential piece of our business model, and we therefore treat them as the valuable components of our business that they are."
Where ZaLat will go from here remains to be seen, but it's evident that its founder is committed to staying at the helm, given his passion for the business. And as for all those aforementioned pizza-smitten patrons — stoner or not? Our guess is they, too, will be along for the ride until the very wee hours of the morning.
About S.A. Whitehead
Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.
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