Press & Media

Carl Comeaux is CEO of Crust Pizza Co., a rapidly growing, Chicago tavern-style, franchise concept based in Houston, Texas. As of January 2025, Crust claims 30 locations, with a high concentration in the Houston metro area and Louisiana. Crust operates with a hybrid quick-service model: Diners order via counter service, but their food is brought out to them. Diners can also order additional beverages at their table via server. The brand believes a nostalgic, dine-in experience is what sets it apart from competitors. Still, a large percentage of sales (about 50%, according to Comeaux) are via takeout and delivery. The brand tried a DELCO location at one point, but decided it wasn’t a good fit (but more on that in a minute). 

Peyton Smith owns and operates Mission Pizza Napoletana in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. After running a pop-up for several years, Smith opened a full-service brick-and-mortar shop in 2014. Serving authentic Neapolitan pizza, Mission Pizza’s emphasis is on the dine-in experience. Smith has a unique perspective on quick-service versus full-service due to Mission Pizza’s latest endeavor: Mission Pizza Romana is based inside Terra Nova Brewery in the foodie-centric city of Asheville, North Carolina. Until the city suffered catastrophic damage from Hurricane Helene, Mission Pizza Romana served Neapolitan-inspired pizza at Terra Nova. More recently, it pivoted to Roman-style pizza that could be baked off-site. In both circumstances, however, Smith and his brother, co-owner Geoff Smith, employed a quick-service model to reach customers. 

After a 20-plus-year hiatus, Zepeddie’s Pizzeria reopened in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the 1990s, the pizzeria was known for offering a family-friendly buffet. But when the Zepsa family, who founded the original Zepeddie’s Pizza in 1994 and sold it in 1999, decided to reopen the pizza place, they opted for a quick-service-only model. Though the new shop can seat about two dozen diners inside—and many more in a large patio area when the weather is nice—the Zepsas steered away from the old-school buffet model for a number of reasons.

To properly understand the Zepeddie’s pivot, one has to first understand the Charlotte neighborhood where it resides. The Lower South End, or LoSo neighborhood, has changed dramatically over the past several years. While it was once largely a warehouse area, a mass migration to Charlotte—along with a light-rail line that was installed through it—has breathed new life into the neighborhood. While the new Zepeddie’s is about 500 yards from the original location, owner Brian Zepsa estimated, its surroundings offer an entirely new dynamic. The old warehouses have been turned into breweries, and large apartment complexes have been built up around them. 

“Some of [our calculus] was based on square footage,” Zepsa said of why Zepeddie’s moved closer to a DELO model, noting that the 2,000-square-foot shop is much smaller than the original Zepeddie’s. “Some of it was based on the fact that you can walk to thousands of apartments right from our facility, and, of course, it’s the fact that to-go food has exploded over the last several years—especially since COVID. Some of that played into it as well.”  

Zepeddie’s does a lot of business through third-party aggregators—again, something that didn’t exist in 1999—and has established a partnership with a brewery next door, Lower Left Brewing, which has no in-house food program. Lower Left has allowed Zepeddie’s to post signage inside, equipped with a QR code to pull up the pizzeria’s food menu. The Zepeddie’s team will hand-deliver items to Lower Left tables to further enhance its reach. 

For Crust Pizza Co., the dine-in experience has always been at the heart of everything it does. Even if it’s not a true full-service model—again, customers order at the counter and then grab a table—it closely resembles one based on the table touches team members are instructed to make. The company recently tried a DELCO location, but found it didn’t work for them.

“What we learned from that experience is that with DELCO, you’re competing with some really big players,” Comeaux said. “I mean you’ve got Domino’s, Marco’s, Papa Johns—they’re not even pizza companies. They’re digital marketing companies. Their advertising per month is like 8% to 12% [of fixed costs]. And they have to do that to get the amount of traffic they need to make the money they need to make.” 

Adding to that complexity, Comeaux said, is the fact that a huge portion of the largest quick-service pizza brands regularly offer discounts on the majority of their transactions. That makes it a lot harder to out-volume these chains. “The only way for a new entrepreneur to make it in the DELCO model, in my opinion, is if they’re a local celebrity,” Comeaux said. “So if you’re [well-known in the area], and everybody knows [you] and you want to make a go of it, maybe you can do that. For us, only 8% of our tickets are discounted. So we’re competing in a whole different category.” 

Smith boils down the choice between full service and quick service to what your personal vision is. Do you want to curate a true restaurant experience, complete with sides, desserts and a dynamic beverage menu, or do you simply love making and selling pizza? Not to mention: If you’re wanting to offer true, authentic Neapolitan pizza—a pizza style that notoriously does not travel well—a dine-in model is going to make a lot more sense. 

Still, as Smith has transitioned to a second location—the one that’s now pumping out Roman-style squares at a brewery—he sees the wisdom in a quick-service format. “Arguably, if you could do similar revenues, you wouldn’t want anyone in your building,” Smith said. “If they’re just as happy with the end product, you need a bunch less people [on your team] to make that possible. You are more likely to be able to fill your production spot with all kinds of people that can do the job.”

“I’ve had similar conversations with tons of operators who ultimately go, ‘You know what?’ Over time, there’s a disconnect between saying I want to perform at a high level and then building a model that then requires a ton of people to make that happen,” Smith continued. “The more moving parts, the further you’re going to get away from this ideal high level of execution.” 

In other words, while creating a full-service experience has the opportunity to make more top-line sales, it also brings exponentially more opportunities to get something wrong. While offerings like alcohol sales generate a high margin, they also necessitate the involvement of at least one more set of hands. Each set of hands, and each team member, has the ability to color the experience, for better or worse, for the guest. For a pizzaioli looking to open up a restaurant, they have to decide: Is that risk worth the upside? 

“Ultimately, over time, the question is: How do we create a model that allows us to be really excellent and to get everything right an incredibly high percentage of the time?” Smith said. “And the answer is that it often includes fewer parts and fewer people.”