Pie Five's High Five pizza
A few months ago, a friend took me to a food expert’s workshop to check out his latest idea in fast food: quick personal pizza. The guy let us sample a couple of pizzas quickly cooked on an expensive circular stone pizza oven. The pizzas were good, and it seemed like a good idea. The guy was planning to franchise the idea; I don’t remember the name he was planning to use, but I do remember that it was my least-favorite part of the plan.
But what would happen, I asked, if one of the big pizza chains decided to get in the business? Wouldn’t it be difficult to beat them at their own game? The guy told me he wasn’t worried — the taste of his pizzas (he was planning to charge somewhere around $8.50 apiece) — would be better than a chain’s.
Well, that’s what Pizza Inn is doing with Pie Five near Central Expressway and Henderson in the same strip center as Potbelly sandwich shop. Pie Five’s big deal: a 9-inch personal pan pizza (regular or thin crust) in five minutes or less for $6.49. Pie Five has eight or 10 specials, as well as a make-your-own opportunity picking among the many meats, veggies and other garnishments.
True to promise, the pizza went through a $10,500 Turbo Chef oven similar to what you see at Pot Belly, coming out the other end hot and ready to eat. We took ours home, but there was ample seating and a couple of TVs tuned to sports. Also on the menu was a $2.49 small salad and 5-for-a-buck cinnamon dough bits, which we didn’t try but looked like dots of pizza dough coated in butter and cinnamon.
This Pie Five opened the Friday before Thanksgiving, and there wasn’t much of a crowd when we were there Saturday night. But it seems like a good lunch spot, along with a good place to pick up a quick after-work pizza, too. According to this Business Journal story, Pizza Inn is planning to franchise quite a few Pie Five’s over the next few years.
