Staying Humble
The Hunt Brothers quietly built an Austin icon
Brandon and Zane Hunt are humble and soft spoken when talking about their multi-million-dollar pizza company, Via 313 in Austin, Texas.
“We just serve good pizza and try to take care of people,” Zane says.
The Hunt brothers have amassed an incredible following in Austin and beyond for the Detroit pizza they perfected 10 years ago, at a time when the only likely place you could find Detroit-style pizza was in the Motor City. With three brick-and-mortar locations and two permanently placed pizza trailers, Via 313 crushes annual sales at more than $12 million and consistently ranks as one of the hottest pizzerias in the country. This year, Via 313 receives a new distinction as Pizza Today’s 2020 Pizzeria of the Year.
Rising up from a rough childhood in Detroit, the two self-made entrepreneurs took an idea to recreate the pizza they loved as kids and open a neighborhood pizzeria. After relocating to the Lone Star State, the two pulled the trigger on the first trailer in downtown Austin in 2011 and before the year was up, they added a second trailer.
Check out more on Via 313’s origin story and the Hunt Brothers.
Pizza Today on the Road: Via 313, Austin, TX
Self-made Hunt brothers’ Via 313 initiates Detroit-style pizza’s move west. Before Detroit-style pizza became the hit thing outside of the Motor City, trailblazers Brandon and Zane Hunt decided to bring their hometown pizza to Austin, Texas. It wasn’t called Detroit-style pizza then. It was just pizza… READ MORE.
When it came time to open the first brick-and-mortar location, the brothers had done all the legwork to launch a new spot, but they needed a little motivational push from industry greats like the late Big Dave Ostrander and Tony Gemignani to put the plan into motion. The brothers opened their first sit-down restaurant in the Oak Hill neighborhood in 2015.
“I think that when we opened the restaurant down in Oak Hill, we already had this positive momentum and there is already this yearning for a different option, maybe a downtown brand per se at that time to open in their neighborhood,” Zane says. “So now we are in this family neighborhood. At the time, we feel like we took a chance by opening that first restaurant in Oak Hill.”
The leap paid off as eager customers lined the block on opening day and the location continued to thrive. A North Campus location followed in 2016 and a restaurant in East Austin in 2018. The trailers still focus on pizza, while the restaurants offer a full menu and bar.
“When I look back onto what we’ve been through in the almost 10 years since we started, I feel like we rose up to meet demand,” Zane says. “We did it really organically. We did work hard at it, but we also got lucky. A lot of this that has happened is being in the right place at the right time honestly.”
Success often blends fortitude and good fortune. Via 313 is culmination of the fruition of the brothers’ dream; a tenacious work ethic; strong business sense; a lead, not follow mentality, people-focused values and a little bit of luck.
Authenticity
Brandon and Zane built the Via 313 concept around themselves. “That was the whole point of starting the business to be a bigger thing, an extension of us, whether it be the black building or the music that is playing, the pictures on the wall,” Brandon says. “It’s all curated of who we are, that’s for sure.”
The stores and trailers are designed to be gritty in the best possible way. Each location is polished but intentionally made to look like the pizzeria has been there for 30 years.
“That’s really what we wanted to do is open a pizzeria in the classic sense, very old fashioned, full service, pitcher of beer after softball or soccer, that whole thing with kids and families,” Zane says.
The concept was built to center around the pizza, that signature rectangular pie with sauce on top and caramelized edges. Moreover, it’s about creating a sensory experience. “There was shit that we ate when we were kids that tasted a certain way, that we had memories to and we tried to get as close to that as possible,” Brandon says. “You know when you eat a pepperoni it tastes like a pepperoni, but does it hit a memory?”
Zane continues, “For us pizza nerds and the folks in the industry that nerd out about this stuff like us, we know what those things are, those little flavor profiles that you are trying to hit those notes. We know what we need to do to take it there, but our customers don’t know really, for the most part. Although they are more educated now than they were 10 years ago about these things. It is about hitting on those things that are deeply embedded in your mind. I say that while also acknowledging that Brandon and I are fortunate enough to grow up in southeast Michigan, which has a wonderful pizza scene.”
Taking care of people is at the heart of the Hunt’s business. “We have raving fans,” Brandon says. “We haven’t spent any money on advertising. It’s all been trying to provide a five-star atmosphere, whether that be the first-timer welcome, dumdums when you’re done, having a server that might be intimidating looking but ends up being the most pleasant person that you’ve met. The focus is customer service.”
That hospitality extends beyond Via 313’s customers. “If you’re bragging about not paying for marketing and taking care of people,” Brandon says, “that doesn’t stop at the customers. That goes all the way down to the employees, to the Favor drivers. We have to be there for everyone. It takes a community to support everything.”
Brandon and Zane have assembled a team of nearly 200 employees. It’s important to the brothers that wages are well above the Texas minimum wage, but also show equity across positions. “We probably lean a little more sensitive to kitchen people,” Zane says. “I think they get the short end of the stick in Texas, where they can’t get tipped.”
Via 313 has packaged impressive employee benefits, like paid time off for employees who work 30 hours a week. The brothers also try to cap everyone’s workweek to 40 hours. Employees who work 20 hours a week are eligible for company health insurance. Managers receive mileage reimbursement and cell phones.
With the sheer volume at each unit, the jobs can be demanding and challenging, but it’s a fun environment with an eclectic mix of staff members. “It’s pizza, ice cream and beer and those things lend themselves to being inclusive,” Zane says. “Our environment and culture should be as inclusive as possible. We try to make it as inclusive as possible.”
Zane and Brandon always look to being better leaders and learn from their team. That requires them to evaluate and re-evaluate their business constantly. “We’re old by Austin standards. So, we don’t always have our finger on the pulse,” Zane says. “We can always learn and evolve and the only way that is going to happen is through listening to (our team) and listening to the community that we are in. We are trying to be a good community partner that lends itself to the team, as well. We need to be a good community partner within the restaurant with our team.”
Learning and Adapting
When it comes to the business, It’s not enough for Brandon and Zane to be good. “I say we are like 85-percent nailing it all the time,” Brandon says. “But I think that 85 percent goes a long way. And we are constantly trying to make it 90 to 95, trying to get to 100. I think the customers pick up on that we are always trying to get better. Every time you come to the restaurant something has been updated or changed or cleaned up. We’re constantly reinvesting in the business. I feel like that goes a long way, too.”
One of the most beneficial changes Zane and Brandon made a little over three years ago was switching to a tablet-based POS system. “Adding that new POS system really made us more efficient and helped cut down on the errors, as well,” Brandon says.
Brandon and Zane strive to keep learning and growing. “I always feel like being a small business owner is just doing a bunch of things that you are probably not comfortable doing or not really good at,” Zane says. “There are some things I think we are good at, not a lot. We are willing to learn. And now that we’ve gotten a little busier, we can hire people that can help fill those weaknesses.”
A willingness to learn had helped Via 313 become beloved in the Austin food scene. “The fact that we are nine years in and not irrelevant,” Brandon says. “I think that is the hardest thing is staying relevant in the current climate. And just having that loyalty from the customer base is just incredible.”
New Challenges
Just as every pizzeria has adapted to operating a restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic, Via 313 quickly shifted to a carryout-only model. With a large percentage of Via 313’s business coming from dine-in, Brandon and Zane built the model to run at 60 percent of its normal sales. They restructured staffing needs and adjusted server pay to fit a carryout model. They also added a service charge that goes to the team. “The days are condensed and it’s just one shift for everyone and we cut out everything, you know, no table-seating app, very little CO2, no linens being delivered,” Brandon says. “We pretty much have the bill down to everything that is the bare minimum that we need to run the restaurant with a carryout platform, and it’s proven to work well.”
Zane concurs. “(The model) works and we’re fortunate that it works,” he says. “It’s sustainable like this for the time being but this isn’t what we set out to do. Yes, we can serve a lot of the pizzas like this, but the hospitality piece is lost for the most part.” The hunt brothers are eager to get back to what love: hospitality.
Our 2020 Independent Pizzeria of Year offer parting advice to fellow and prospective operators: “I think it’s just doing it whatever you want to do,” Brandon says. “That’s the biggest life lesson that I have learned from all of this. ‘Man, I wish we would have done this five years ago.’ You just got to do it. If you have an idea, just put it on paper, make sure it makes sense financially and do it.”
Zane follows up Brandon. “Nobody is going to give you anything,” he says. “You’re going to have to go work for it and prove yourself, prove your worth.”
DENISE GREER is Executive Editor at Pizza Today.
DIVE DEEPER: Read Detroit Style Pizza: A Guide to Detroit Pizza
Special thanks to Consumable Content providing some of the images for this feature.
