WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2004
BUSINESS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN ●
9
Z. G. Straus/Kansan
Grady Creek, Kansas City, Kan., senior; Chris Soetaert, Lawrence resident; Jarrett Pous, Lawrence resident; Jeff Dittmer, Desoto senior, and owner Ryan Murphy are employees at the newly opened Wheat State Pizza, 711 W.23rd St. The eatery opened its doors to the public Thursday.
Pizza shop has new taste and local feel
By Erik Johnson
ejohnson@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Ryan Murphy wanted to silence the grumbling stomachs of students and local residents with higher-quality ingredients and a far-from-corporate, local feel when he opened the doors to Lawrence's seventeenth pizza shop.
Murphy, Eudora resident, opened Wheat State Pizza Thursday in The Malls shopping center. 711 W.23rd St., in the former space of Godfather's Pizza.
With six years of Lawrence pizza experience three at Papa John's Pizza, 2233 Louisiana St., and three at Domino's Pizza, 832 Iowa St. Murphy said he wanted to develop his own pizza using ingredients he knew customers would prefer.
After sampling 24 different cheeses, he settled on a Wisconsin cheese that was not flash-frozen during production like cheese found at most national chains.
Murphy said Wheat State Pizza's biggest advantage may be the whole wheat crust he designed himself, using more sugar to make the crust taste sweeter.
Rich Morrell, associate vice provost of student success at the University of Kansas, ate with a weekly lunch group of four other Lawrence residents at Wheat State on Friday. Morrell said he liked the wheat crust and that the group would return.
The lack of a national advertising
budget will force him to keep prices lower than the competition — a large, one-topping pizza is $1 less than Papa John's — and offer menu options other stores won't have, such as Silas and Mady's ice cream, Murphy said. He hopes local support will help the business.
"Twenty-third Street is becoming a corporate environment," he said. "We want to change that."
Kansas City-based Devlin Partners, L.L.C., franchises 35 Papa John's stores throughout Kansas and western Missouri. Scott MacHardy, general manager of Papa John's Lawrence store, said sales vary from year to year, but the Lawrence location is consistently one of Devlin Partners and Lawrence's top pizza shops.
A slumping economy and an Atkinscrazed America has been tough on the pizza industry, but national chains don't feel the pinch quite like local stores because an established national base allows chains to absorb minor losses easier. said MacHardy.
Economic ails and carb-counting diet obsessions aside, Murphy said his shop could succeed in a highly competitive environment because local residents found Lawrence-based businesses more appealing.
"They know we'll put more time into their food," Murphy said. "We're not going to serve anything that's less than perfect."
— Edited by Miranda Lenning
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