How do you know you’re opening a pizzeria in the right market? This can be a daunting question for an expanding pizza chain.
It’s a bit simpler for Cascadia Pizza Co., though. Founded as a mobile pizza business in 2015, nearly all of Cascadia’s brick-and-mortar locations were carefully selected based on the towns and neighborhoods where it saw the most traction. In addition to its seven brick-and-mortar locations, Cascadia owns five mobile food trucks.
“It helps us understand if it’s a viable market,” said Christian Buck, founder and COO of Cascadia Pizza Co., which is based about an hour southeast of Seattle. “Does the customer base respond well to [Cascadia’s pizza trucks]? And it’s actually saved our butt a few times, where we thought a place would be a great market to open up a pizzeria in, and it turned out it was not at all what we thought. It’s also just such a great way to market the brand before we open a pizzeria.”
With help from Franchise FastLane—a third-party company that matches up growing franchise brands with franchisees—Cascadia Pizza Co. has recently begun franchising in order to accelerate nationwide growth. Cascadia markets itself to prospective franchisees as a “food-truck-first” company. Buck said he and his team of executives strongly believe it’s a unique part of the brand’s identity.
“Typically, when a franchisee signs a franchise agreement, they’re also buying a food truck,” Buck said. “Ultimately, they can decide if they want to have a food truck or not, but we highly, highly encourage it. I think being mobile is a really beneficial aspect of our business.”
Diving In
Buck had little experience in pizza when he founded Cascadia Pizza Co. He had an opportunity to buy a trailer with a wood-fired dome oven on it and a tent to go with it. He spent some time perfecting a pizza recipe—and worked a two-day stint at Will Grant’s Sourdough Willy’s Pizzeria—and called a craft beer bar, Fill’s Growlers, in Enumclaw, Washington, to see if he could come serve pizza. Buck was given the greenlight and sold 120 pizzas on his first day in business. He never really looked back.
“Honestly, it was kind of a ‘[screw] it’ moment,” Buck said of buying the trailer. “I wanted to see how it would go. When we sold out of pizza, we were like, ‘OK, we might have something here.’”
The mobile pizza business quickly became a bona fide side hustle for Buck. He dove into the catering business and continued visiting area breweries, of which there are no shortage of in the Pacific Northwest. Weddings and rehearsal dinners were also popular events for Cascadia Pizza Co.—functions that earned a nice paycheck and helped build enthusiasm for the brand.
“We always say catering is like dinner and a show,” Buck said. “People were really just enamored with the product…Building the business was really just a brick-by-brick thing. It was like the most ground-level start you could ever imagine.”
In 2017, Buck bought a proper food truck and Cascadia Pizza Co. became his full-time job. Not long after, Buck caught wind that Fill’s Growlers was moving out of its Enumclaw location, and it became a full-circle moment for Cascadia Pizza Co. What better place to open its first brick-and-mortar restaurant than in the first place he served pizza? Buck outbid a few other interested parties for the space, and it opened as Cascadia Pizza Co’s first physical location in 2019.
Growth Goals
It was at that point that Buck realized he needed some help. He had serious growth ambitions from the start: He told people he wanted to “open 100 of these things,” and he was smart enough to know he couldn’t accomplish that alone. Buck teamed up with Calvin Freatman—now Cascadia’s CEO—and Thomas Reinhard, CFO. Each partner brought their own strengths to the business, but they shared a vision for what the brand could be.
In early 2020, the partners bought a second food truck. They never even had a chance to use it before pandemic lockdowns went into place. Enough time went by that Freatman, Reinhard and Buck had time to wonder if they’d made a mistake buying the second food truck. And then the HOAs started calling.
“They were like, please come out to our neighborhoods and sell pizza,” Buck said. “Because we were one of like three local restaurants that were able to remain open. Not only did the food truck save us, but it actually allowed us to go into our second location, which was about 30 minutes away from our first one, basically in the next town over.”
Perhaps one of the reasons Cascadia Pizza Co. was such a hit with its customers—both before and after lockdown—was due to its delightfully simple menu. Cascadia serves small and large wood-fired pizzas that could best be described as Neo-Neapolitan. It also offers salads, breadsticks, wings, and two dessert pies—and that’s about it. Ordering is an unintimidating, streamlined process.
Franchising in the Fast Lane
Thanks to the chemistry between Reinhard, Freatman and Buck, the brand’s identity came into focus. The partners wanted to create a community-oriented brand that served a quality, wood-fired pizza paired with top-notch customer service. It was the formula Buck had developed the brand with, and it was the one he wanted to drive Cascadia’s growth. With those things in mind, Buck, Reinhard and Freatman quickly identified franchising as the model that would help take the brand to the next level.
“As we were building out our systems and processes, we started to feel like the best pizzeria operators have between like 2-to-5 pizzerias or restaurants because they can be in each pizzeria at least once per week,” Buck said. “So as we started mapping out what it would look like if we had, you know, 25, 30, 40, 50—100—corporate-owned stores, you can’t be in that many pizzerias a week. And then the customer is going to get lost between middle management. And that’s not our product. This is a very family, community-driven business. So we really felt like franchising was the answer.”
As Cascadia began courting prospect franchisees, the partners realized they didn’t care for the sales process. According to Buck, they were much more interested in running and developing restaurants. That is why Cascadia ended up partnering with Franchise FastLane. The company would help develop franchisee leads and deals for Cascadia, while Buck, Reinhard and Freatman would be freed up to focus on restaurant operations.
“We’re insanely lucky to work with a company with its proven track record of sales,” Buck said, a nod to Franchise FastLane’s stable of 23 clients and counting. “It’s been a no-brainer to us in order to help us really accelerate our growth.”
The admiration is mutual, said Tim Koch, President and COO of Franchise FastLane. “[Buck] and the Cascadia Pizza Co. team have built something truly special, and we couldn’t be more excited to help take their growth to the next level,” Koch said via press release. “Their commitment to quality, hospitality and community connection sets them apart, and their flexible model—offering both brick-and-mortar locations and mobile food units—creates incredible opportunities for franchisees. With a proven concept and a product people love, Cascadia Pizza Co. is primed for expansion, and we’re proud to be part of their journey.”
As the brand continues to grow, its mobile-first mentality is still at the heart of everything it does. As was aforementioned, Cascadia strongly encourages all franchise owners to also buy a food truck to help identify the markets in their territory that will respond well to Cascadia’s wood-fired pizza. If anything, the partnership with Franchise FastLane has only made Buck more bullish on his vision for having 100 pizzerias some day.
“We haven’t scaled back our expectations at all,” Buck said. “I think our product and brand are that good. I think it’s time for America to be done with bad pizza. I think people are finally waking up to what a good, quality pie really looks like and they’re willing to pay a couple of extra dollars for a high-quality product. That’s where we thrive. We have this internal mission to be a disruptor. I want to be a disruptor. I want to go in and compete for market share in underserved markets.”