Texas Pizzeria The Grove Wood Fired Pizza offers a unique pizza concept
Retired elementary school teachers turned pizza business owners Suzanne Francis, Ruth Matheny and Katie Agor created carved a retirement business that keeps the friends together. The Grove Fired Pizza in Granbury, Texas, was born. The
1.) What defines your restaurant and makes you stand out?
Our restaurant stands out because the pizza oven is outdoors where the customers can watch their pizzas being cooked. We have a covered pavilion for some of the seating, and the rest is all picnic style with tables and chairs scattered in the yard along with different outdoor games for them to play.
2.) Tell us about your pizza style(s).
Our pizza style would most likely be considered Neo-Neapolitan. We use poolish to make our dough and use 270 grams of dough to make our 12 inch pizzas. We fire them in our 800 degree oven that uses a combination of gas and wood. The pecan grove we are nestled in surely dictates that we use pecan firewood exclusively in our oven, so that’s exactly what we do.
3.) What pizza menu item do your fans go crazy over and describe it?
The menu item that our fans go crazy for is our pizza flight. We divide our regular dough ball into thirds so people can try 3 small sample pizzas instead of one regular size. We came up with this idea because if we personally went to a restaurant and were presented with options we weren’t necessarily used to, we would probably opt for a familiar pizza to be on the safe side instead of taking a risk on ordering an unfamiliar type that we might not be in love with. Our motto is “Try something new. Revisit what you love!” Sometimes people will order 2 or 3 flights so they can try different options and we love to hear them ranking and re-ranking their favorites because that’s what we do too. Our jalapeno popper pizza, with sausage, bacon, roasted jalapenos, cilantro, mozzarella and guacamole cream cheese salsa is usually the front runner for our Texas friends that love their spicy food.
Listen to a Conversation with The Grove Owners
We met the three entrepreneurs at Pizza Expo 2023 and were luck to hear their story for our Pizza Expo Sessions on The Hot Slice Podcast. Listen to Suzanne Francis, Ruth Matheny and Katie Agor talk about how they started The Grove and its unique concept style. We also learn about those amazing pizza flights, a genius idea to let customers try three different pizzas at the same time. Listen now to Women Redefining Pizzerias.
