What began as one of the hardest trials for a decades-old restaurant in Columbia ended up being a chance for a larger task.
Village Idiot Pizza, a longstanding pizza area that began in the heart of Five Points and has actually given that broadened to 3 overall areas, will begin franchising, owners revealed May 9.
Brian and Kelly Glynn, the husband-and-wife duo who acquired the restaurant in the early 2000s, at first dabbled the concept of franchising throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“(The decision) was born out of COVID,” Kelly said. “It was a reflection of what we had just gone through — probably one of the hardest journeys in our restaurant life, and we made it through. We just really wanted to see the brand expand and flourish.”
The set explained their perfect development design as “organic” and want to grow external from their existing dining establishments — the initial place in an upstairs space in Five Points, an area in Forest Drive and another in the Olympia area.
Kelly said the hope is to broaden the pizzeria, fondly called merely Village, to closer markets like Lexington, Irmo, Chapin and Blythewood prior to starting to growth throughout the state, ultimately considering other SEC college towns — and even significant USC competitor Clemson’s stomping premises, where Kelly said Village has great deals of fans.
Village Idiot was opened at 2009 Devine St. in 1990 by 3 college pals who “lovingly referred to themselves as ‘the village idiots,’” according to the restaurant’s website. Brian and Kelly satisfied while they both interacted at the restaurant and acquired it from initial owners in 2003. Over the last twenty years, they have actually broadened to other areas.
The couple wishes to see “like-minded partners” who share Village Idiot’s core worths, Brian said, so they can make sure the brand name becomes part of the surrounding neighborhood. Their business strategy isn’t to open as numerous shops as possible by a particular date, however, rather, to share the pleasure of serving a neighborhood they enjoy.
“Pizza is a good way to bring people together,” Brian, who runs the restaurant’s cooking area, said. “You can feed a lot of people with pizza and we want to kind of plant those seeds in different areas with the right people… It’s a big benefit to the community to have businesses that are our true partners and truly invested.”
And while Village is the very first restaurant in years to franchise, it’s not the very first Columbia-based restaurant to broaden throughout the state. Well-liked dining establishments like Groucho’s Deli, Rush’s and Lizard’s Thicket all started as simple mom-and-pop dining establishments prior to broadening to numerous areas in Columbia, Lexington, Florence, Camden and other parts of South Carolina.
Groucho’s, which started in the 1940s, franchised in 2000 and now has almost 30 areas throughout South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.
Rush’s and Lizard’s Thicket are not franchised; each place is company-owned. Bobby Williams, whose dad is the initial owner of Lizard’s Thicket, owns the restaurant and said they attempted franchising in Greenville however eventually chosen versus it.
“We decided then that we will not franchise because this is something we built ourselves, and it was a bad feeling of not having control over people,” Williams said. “It’s not worth it to us personally. We care too much about the business to lose control of it.”
Don Alcorn, CEO of Rush’s, likewise has personal ties to the restaurant. Alcorn operated at the dining establishments throughout the vacations and summertimes of college and ultimately went back to the restaurant full-time.
“It’s been a good run,” Alcorn said. “We’ve had good success at every place.”
Alcorn said the business is keeping back from broadening at the minute due to the fact that of labor lacks. But he gets demands “always” about broadening to other parts of South Carolina.
“We’re always getting requests. ‘Come to Greenville, come to Charleston,’ that sort of thing,” Alcorn said. “We got a good support from our loyal customers and they want to come wherever they are.”
