Your Pie featured in QSR Magazine

Our Savannah franchisee Paul Childers was recently featured by QSR Magazine in an article titled, "A Healthier Slice," where he discusses the customized, healthier choices that they offer to their customers. Childers gives some insight into some of the challenges he has been faced with in the market with the two Your Pie locations in Savannah and how they have had to change consumer thinking. With the trends of healthier ingredients and changing consumer trends, Your Pie is well positioned for growth in the area. One advantage that Your Pie has is its unique approach where they let guests customize pizzas, salads and their craft beer selections. 

Click here for the full article. 

A Healthier Slice

Paul Childers discusses how franchisees can market healthy options and high-quality ingredients to draw in a new kind of crowd.

After years of working in the furniture industry and spending time owning, operating, and eventually selling his stores, Paul Childers entered the quick-serve world in 2009 when a hot tip from a good friend turned Childers on to a new pizza concept called Your Pie.

Today, Childers’s two franchised units in Savannah, Georgia, are experiencing positive growth and buzz about town. Built on the backs of fresh ingredients, customer choice, family-recipe sauces, and craft-beer options, Your Pie is giving Childers’s customers something they can’t get at other fast-food brands.

Childers attributes his success to the concept and the customized, healthier choices that it offers customers, but says it hasn’t been easy; he and his team have had to battle against bigger brands on both the food and beverage side of business, using hard work and quality product to draw consumers.

Childers shares how the combination of choice, quality product, and healthy options can help a brand stand up to even the largest of competitors.

1. Mute the monotony

The reason I was attracted to Your Pie as a business was the fresh take on the mundane. There are always so many places to get a pizza, regardless of your location. Your Pie reminded me of that local pizza shop that has an edge over the big brands: It’s usually locally owned and operated by someone in the community, and run by employees who are committed to the local cause and local growth.

Your Pie took that concept, turned it into a made-to-order product, and had people coming back for more. Additionally, it was giving customers a pizza option that could be healthier and less greasy—with vegetables, gluten-free crusts, white or wheat dough, oil-based pizzas, and so on—without compromise. The choice is there for every customer across the board.

To continue reading article, click here. 

Franchisee Spotlight: Macon Evans and Barrett Feighner, Columbus, Georgia

Macon Evans and Barrett Feighner both come from families of longtime Columbus natives and the two have known each other since early childhood.  The lifelong friends attended Columbus’s Brookstone School from kindergarten through middle school, and while they attended separate high schools they stayed close friends and went to the University of Georgia together where Macon studied economics and Barrett studied business management.  During their time at UGA, they both worked at Five Points Deli in Athens.

After college, Macon stayed in Athens and went to work in the corporate offices of Barberitos and Barrett returned to Columbus to work in the real estate industry.  Their jobs kept them on the road for a significant portion of 3 to 5 years, and they both realized that they wanted to pursue their own business together.  After looking into a variety of franchise restaurant options, they went back to one of Macon’s favorite restaurants in Athens, Your Pie.  They opened their location in The Landings in September 2011 and opened their second location in Uptown Columbus in March 2013. 

Macon and Barrett have won several awards since opening, including the Top Sales award for the Landings location at the recent Your Pie franchisee conference.  Only in business since March 2013, the Uptown location is already on pace to beat those sales numbers by as high as 40%.

The success of the Uptown area can be attributed, in part, to the big push to revitalize the area and bring in vibrant young businesses like Your Pie. 

How did you learn about the brand?

It was one of Macon’s favorite places to eat in Athens.  When we decided we wanted to open a restaurant together, we looked at frozen yogurt as an option and several other concepts.  None of them seemed to be exactly what we wanted.  Your Pie was a young company that offered a lot of different markets for growth and we liked that we could grow with the company.  Pizza is a proven concept, and Your Pie is a unique and innovative twist on pizza.  It was a different way of experiencing the pizza concept…and also, the product is just really good.  We decided Your Pie was the concept for us, so we went and met with Drew and secured the Columbus (Georgia) and Auburn (Alabama) markets. 

What are your expansion or development plans? What is your end goal with Your Pie?

There is probably only room for one more in Columbus.  If all goes well, we can open one in Auburn.  We haven’t done anything in Auburn yet.  We decided to open our second Columbus location instead of moving into Auburn.

I mean, if it goes well, we’d love to have a dozen of these…but right now we’re committed to three or four and growing at a realistic pace.  There are no specific plans yet to open in Auburn, but I’ve been looking into potential real estate for when we decide to make that move.

Are you involved with any charities or do any community outreach with your business?

We are involved in Young Professionals with the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce.  We host “Spirit Nights” where people from a charity or organization can come and a certain portion of the sales are donated back to the organization.  We also work with a local shelter called PAWS.

Do you have any superstar employees?

Columbus State University is the local college and 80% of our staff is from there.  The theater department building at Columbus State University is downtown, so half of our staff at the downtown location is from the theater department.  They’re great because they have big personalities and have been excellent employees.

Do you have any hobbies, pastimes, and passions outside of work?

Barrett lives on the water and loves to spend time wake boarding and paddle boarding, he plays basketball, they both golf.  They both like to spend time with their dogs.  Barrett is engaged while Macon is single.

Franchisee Spotlight: Clay and Debi Huckaby, Watkinsville, Georgia

Clay and Debi Huckaby met in college while attending Georgia Southern.  After graduation, Clay started a career in governmental affairs while Debi began a career in printing.  The two still maintain jobs in those fields while running their two Your Pie locations.  Clay, a lifelong foodie, always had an itch to open a franchise but never found just the right one.  He was able to scratch that itch after he and Debi made a trip to one of Your Pie Founder Drew French’s locations in the Beechwood area of Athens.  The two fell in love with the customizable pizza concept, the family-friendly atmosphere, and the delicious pizza. The two opened their Watkinsville Your Pie in September 2010.  They opened their 2^nd location in on the East side of Athens in February 2013.  The couple has three boys, ages 8, 13, and 16, who attend Oconee County schools.

How did you learn about the brand?

Clay is a foodie so we go to new restaurants all the time.  We’d heard about this new place called Your Pie so we went and checked it out.  Clay had always been interested in opening a franchise, and had been thinking about it for 10 or 15 years.  We went to Drew’s (Your Pie Founder Drew French) store in Beechwood and loved it!  We liked the whole experience.  We loved the customizable pizza concept, the ingredients, and the beer and wine.  Your Pie is a completely family-friendly place.  Kids love it, and that’s been a really fun part of it.

What makes your business unique in the community?

You get to make your own pizza.  It’s as simple as that.  Being able to customize their own pizza is a big deal to our customers.  We have regulars who come in 3 or 4 times a week and our managers can start making their unique and personalized pie when they see them walking down the sidewalk toward the door.  We have great employees too and we’ve been very lucky in our hiring.  We have some of the high school kids and students from UGA.

Are you involved with any charities or do any community outreach with your business?

We do a lot of “Spirit Nights” where groups, organizations, and teams, come in and we give back a percentage of the profits to the group.  We host youth trivia nights.  We worked with Coaches vs. Cancer recently, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, and we gave the prize of free pizza for a year to the winner.  We’re very active in our local church. 

What challenges have you overcome to get where you are now?

We, like most business owners, are constantly in a battle to keep our food and labor under control.  We gave a ton of discounts in our first year trying to get people in the doors, but we’ve had to adjust and adapt how we do things each year to make sure the experience is the best it can possibly be for our customers.

What are your expansion or development plans? What is your end goal with Your Pie?

We just opened our Athens – East Side location in February so we don’t have any plans to open up additional locations right now.  We’d like to focus on our two restaurants and make them the best they can be.

Do you have any superstar employees?

We have two great GMs at our restaurants who are actually brother and sister.  Caroline works at Watkinsville and her older brother Grant works at our Athens – East Side location…and their other brother works at the Watkinsville restaurant with Caroline.

Forrest is a fantastic employee who we actually interviewed at the Mexican restaurant next door before we were even open.  She was in high school when she started here, and is now in college.  Forrest won the Your Pie Lineage Scholarship last year.  This year, another one of our employees, Katie Hilton, won the Your Pie Lineage Scholarship.

Do you have any hobbies, pastimes, and passions outside of work?

We spend most of our time with the kids.  We just celebrated our 20^th anniversary and went to Mexico for a week which was fantastic.  We also stay involved with the school council, Oconee County Chamber of Commerce, and our church.

Franchisee Spotlight: Britt Hendrix, Statesboro, Georgia

After graduating from the University of Georgia, Britt Hendrix took a job in the field he’d earned a degree in, turf management.  However, he soon learned that he was more passionate about the restaurant industry, having worked in a restaurant the whole time he was in college.  With very little notice, Britt was contacted by Your Pie Founder Drew French about the opportunity to take over ownership of the Statesboro Your Pie location.  Britt jumped on the chance, and in a two month period had signed on to take over ownership, and moved to Statesboro the day before he assumed ownership of the location.  Britt is excited about trading in the red of the University of Georgia for the blue of Georgia Southern University and bringing a fresh energy to the Statesboro Your Pie.  He’s keeping the entire staff that was in place and is hoping to make the location a fun place for both families and the Georgia Southern crowd.

How did you learn about the brand?

After graduating from the University of Georgia with a degree in turf management, I took a job as an assistant superintendent at The Landings in Savannah.  After working there for two years, I came to the conclusion that this wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life.  During my entire time attending UGA, I worked at a restaurant called Hilltop Grille.  Summer came, and I quit the job at The Landings and took a job at Stingrays at Tybee Island and worked the whole summer there right on the beach.  I had the summer of my life, and decided that the food industry is where I wanted to be.  After that summer, I moved back to Athens and went back to work at Hilltop Grille where I’d worked during college. I worked there for 6 months and had that moment where I realized I wasn’t in college anymore, so that lifestyle wasn’t for me.  I went back to Tybee Island for vacation and realized that I needed to open up my own restaurant to truly be happy.  I had been talking with Drew about opening up a Your Pie since I loved the place during my time at UGA, and I wanted to move back near Savannah.  The opportunity to take over the Statesboro Your Pie came out of nowhere.  Drew contacted me to let me know that the Statesboro location was up for sale because the owner had the Your Pie and some other businesses, including a brewery in the area that he wanted to focus on.  It kind of fell in my lap, so to speak, but it was perfect timing so I jumped on the opportunity.

I like the fact that by owning this Your Pie, I’m essentially creating my own job and taking control of my work life.  I had reached a point through my experience that I knew what I DIDN’T want to do, so this was an opportunity for me to create my own job and have my own business in an industry where I’m truly passionate.

How did you meet Drew and learn about the brand?

Me and my friends used to go to Your Pie when we were at the University of Georgia.  We’d go to the concerts there, and it was always a really good time.  I want to provide that lifestyle and experience with the Statesboro Your Pie now.  I met Drew after I contacted them to see if there were any opportunities available.  When I was deciding on what type of restaurant to open, I knew I didn’t want a fryer or a grill in my restaurant, so Your Pie was perfect for what I was looking to open.

What are your plans for the location?

We’re working right now to bring the craft beers back to the Statesboro Your Pie.  We’re going to do pitchers and flights of beer.  We’re going to have trivia, football, and live music.  I’m working to build a stage right now so that we can have live music.   I know a lot of bands from around the state, and I’m looking forward to them coming in to play.  I play myself, and so do some of the employees here, so I think it would be a lot of fun to play at my restaurant.  I mean, how many places can you go to where the owner is up on stage?  We’re also looking at getting heavily involved with Georgia Southern University and the fraternities and sororities on campus.

What makes your business unique in the community?

Your Pie is fresh and it’s healthy.  The Statesboro Your Pie is in a college town with students from Georgia Southern University.  It’s the same thing we did in college at UGA.  We looked for places that were classy, and it’s a nice pre-gaming spot before we went out for the night.  I want it to be a good first date place, a great place for singles to mingle, and that sort of a scene.  I also like that it can be a great place for families to come with the kids, enjoy the gelato, and have a good time.

Are you involved with any charities or do any community outreach with your business?

I’m planning to work with the local schools to help them out.  One day during the week, I want to have a uniform day so that any public service officials, nurses, doctors, anyone in uniform really, gets a discount.  I’m looking into what’s available and hoping to be a positive influence in the community.

What are your expansion or development plans? What is your end goal with Your Pie?

I am looking to open more Your Pie locations once I get this location up and running and successful.  I’d love to open up more in the area and keep expanding.

Do you have any superstar employees?

The staff is the same as it was before.  They’re all college kids and the transition has been great so far.  I’m not a whole lot older than them, so I can understand the problems they’re going through and can talk on their level.  It’s been great getting to know them, and we’re going to have a strong staff under my ownership.

One of my employees is fluent in three languages.  She is a graduate and spent time in China for study abroad.  She’s very diverse and interesting.  She tutors English for a German family.

Do you have any hobbies, pastimes, and passions outside of work?

                                                                                                                                          

I play acoustic guitar and write country and Southern rock music.  I’m hoping to be playing some acoustic sets at the location.  Two of my employees play guitar too, so I think it’ll be cool for us to be performing at our restaurant.