Pizza Studio enters fast-casual pizza fray

The Pizza Studio, a fast-casual pizza concept, has launched in Los Angeles with ambitious plans for national growth.

The art-themed restaurant lets guests build their own 11-inch pizzas on a variety of crusts. Former venture capital fund manager Samit Varma and former Wolfgang Puck Express Licensing executive Ron Biskin are developing the concept. Biskin was was most recently president and COO of Native Foods, a vegan restaurant concept.

Like many players in the segment, Pizza Studio immediately launched a franchising program, with a deal signed for 12 units to open in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut over the next three years.

The company has structured the deal as a joint venture with Lloyd Sugarman, one of Johnny Rockets’ largest franchise operators, Biskin said.

By offering joint-venture partnerships, the company can assist with capital costs to speed the development process, said Pizza Studio co-founder and president Varma.

“The franchisees we’re talking to are experienced multi-unit guys who have the skill set to see our operations and see the model works without having to see 15 units open,” he said.

Austin, Texas-based venture capital firm Mastadon Ventures Inc. and Anthem Venture Partners, an early-stage fund based in Santa Monica, Calif., where Varma used to work, are funding Pizza Studio’s growth.

For those hoping for national domination as a fast-casual pizza chain, “it has become something of a land grab,” co-founder and chief executive Biskin said. “You want to secure the best real estate opportunities out there before someone else does.”

The first Pizza Studio restaurant opened near the University of Southern California campus in downtown Los Angeles in January. Two more corporate locations are scheduled to open in the area by August, with a fourth planned for early 2014, said Biskin.

Pizza Studio was designed as a simple concept that could be multiplied quickly, Biskin said. “We took a bit longer getting ours out there because we wanted to make sure our model had captured all of the elements, that it was scalable,” he said.

Pizza Studio is designed to look like an art studio, with blank concrete walls that can be filled with local art that is for sale, with no commission going to the restaurant. “We wanted to make it a place where we inspired creativity; where you create your own masterpiece,” Varma said.

Guests walk a line to build their pizza, starting with one of four thin, crispy crusts: traditional, whole grain/flax seed, rosemary herb and gluten-free, with more varieties to come, Varma said. The fresh dough is pressed in front of the guest, who then selects from a wide range of sauces, toppings and cheeses.

Once the pizza is designed, it goes through a high-temperature, self-venting conveyor oven, which requires no special hoods that might limit real estate selection or raise building costs, Biskin noted. All pizzas are priced at $7.99.

The menu also includes side salads and Italian ice for dessert, provided by local purveyor Mustache Mike’s.

Build-out costs for franchisees are expected to range from $300,000 to $400,000. Royalties are 5.5 percent, and there is a $15,000 development fee and a $25,000 franchise fee.

Pizza Studio joins a rapidly growing group of fast-casual brands that hope to become the Chipotle of pizza.

Players in this hot niche of the nearly $40 billion pizza space offer artisan-style, cooked-to-order pies in about four minutes. Competitors include Pie Five Pizza Co., a concept by The Colony, Texas-based Pizza Inn Holdings Inc., with development agreements for more than 38 units in place; Los Angeles-based PizzaRev, which recently received a minority investment from Buffalo Wild Wings Inc.; and Blaze Fast Fire’d Pizza, founded by Wetzel’s Pretzels founder Rick Wetzel and his wife Elise Wetzel, with backers that include former California First Lady Maria Shriver, Boston Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner and movie producer John Davis.

Others include 800 Degrees, Project Pie, Pieology, Pizza Pizzeria, Uncle Maddio’s Pizza Joint, Top That! and MOD Pizza.

Contact Lisa Jennings at [email protected].
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