Fernanda Collins liked Crust Pizza so much, she became a franchisee.
Collins and her husband, Austin, became fans of the chain when they were living in The Woodlands, Texas. They were so fond of the business, she said they would go out to dinner and eat at one restaurant, then head to Crust for dessert. When the couple moved to Baton Rouge because of his engineering job, they couldn’t find a pizza restaurant that compared.
“We didn't find any place that we liked as much, that we could have pizza, that we could have salads, we could have an appetizer, desserts, have a beer, and have that nice atmosphere,” said Collins, sitting back in Crust’s Millerville road location. “We thought that was something that Baton Rouge was really missing.”
When the couple made a road trip back to Texas to visit Austin’s family, they noticed that Crust had a restaurant in Lake Charles. They joked about opening a Baton Rouge location, but then they got serious. Her father-in-law had an office near the regional Crust headquarters, so they talked to the company about franchising.
“It took us about two years from the time that we had the idea until we really found a spot to build and open here. The process of finding a good location. It took us over a year,” she said.
While Collins was working as a graphic designer at the time, she did have some roots in the food service business. Collins grew up in Brazil, where her grandmother ran a restaurant that served pizzas.
“Even though I don’t have the background in restaurants, I felt like it was something in me, growing up like that,” she said.
Crust specializes in Chicago-style, thin-crust pizzas, which are dramatically different from the stereotypical Chicago deep dish pie. Deep dish pizza most resembles a pot pie with its thick, high crusts and are typically eaten with a knife and fork. A thin-crust pie has a foundation that is more like a snappy cracker, and the pie is cut into small squares.
The thin-crust pie has roots that go back into Chicago neighborhood bars, according to Bon Appetit magazine, where it was served as a cheap snack alongside after-work beers but wouldn't fill customers up before dinner.
The Crust Pizza chain has 29 locations in Louisiana and Texas, with restaurants in Lake Charles, Sulphur and Moss Bluff.
What makes Crust stand out is the freshness of the ingredients, Collins said. At least twice a day, the pizza dough is made in the restaurant. All of the cheese is shredded in-house.
"A lot of places might use a frozen dough or even frozen veggies, and I think that really you can taste the difference," she said.
Crust's Millerville location marked its first year in business in August. Plans are in the works to open additional restaurants.
"Our next step is find another location," Collins said. "We love Crust, so we really want to bring this to other people."
