Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Jerrier.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jay. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
On my honeymoon in 1995, I went to Italy and fell in love with the wood-fired pizza with simple, high-quality ingredients. When I moved to Texas in 1997 and finally had a yard, I built a wood-fired pizza oven and set about learning to make the kind of pizza I fell in love with in Italy. I was terrible at first, but then found some Italians that were training pizzamakers out in Los Angeles at L’Associazone Verace Pizza Napoletana. Once I had some training, it finally clicked.
I eventually bought a mobile wood-fired oven on a trailer and began doing pizza pop-ups and catering private events. We built up a good following and began looking for a restaurant space. It took almost two years, but we finally opened our first Cane Rosso in Deep Ellum in 2011 – just after the big ice storm that hit the area during the Super Bowl. We were very busy from the start – but it got even crazier when “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” called to say they wanted to film with us in November.
Once the episode aired in Spring 2012, business really exploded. We have since opened Cane Rosso restaurants all over Dallas and the suburbs, plus one in Fort Worth, two in Houston and one in Austin. We have also expanded our brand a bit and opened a NY style/East Coast Italian restaurant called Zoli’s in Addison (with another on the way in Fort Worth in 2019) and three ice cream stores called Cow Tipping Creamery in Austin, Frisco and Carrollton – with another on the way in Fort Worth in 2019.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely not been easy – but it is much better than sitting in a cubicle wearing Dockers! Our biggest challenge up front was finding money to open a restaurant – banks do not like the restaurant business. Making pizza is the easiest part of the job.
The restaurant business is very difficult – new restaurants open all the time, competition for employees is insane, people quit or walk out without any notice, hurricanes and other bad weather, break-ins and theft, bad reviews from angry customers, seasonality, customers running wild in the restaurant, bathrooms being destroyed, technology crashing, setting dumpsters on fire by accident… you name it and we’ve experienced it. But when it all works together – it’s pretty awesome.
Please tell us about Cane Rosso.
We are a company that is built around making sure our guests have a great time when they come to dine with us – whether it is wood-fired pizza, NY style pizza, nostalgic Italian food, or gourmet soft serve ice cream.
We think our food is some of the best in its class and we are constantly looking for ways to get better – but we are really focused on making our guests feel welcome and to enjoy the experience – the food, the service, the hospitality, and the environment. People ask me all the time if we think we have the best pizza… I can’t really answer that because it’s so subjective.
Lots of people love our pizza, and lots of people hate our pizza… but our goal is to make sure that you still had a great time out.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Our growth has probably been a little too fast… it’s hard to digest so many new openings in a short window. I think we had opened five restaurants in an 18-month window. I’d like to have a few do-overs.
Contact Info:
- Website: canerosso.com
- Email: info@canerosso.com
Image Credit:
Jeff Amador (jamador@canerosso.com)
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