New Places of San Marcos

OPENED: December 8, 2015
SERVES: Artisan-style custom pizzas
FEATURES: Your choice of 8 sauces, and a huge variety of 40 meats, cheeses, vegetables, herbs and spices.

Learn More about Piology!
Interview with Nicholas Richards, Piology employee

Can you tell me about Pieology?
We opened up December 4, last year, and we’ve been slowly increasing our popularity in the town, especially with the college kids, being a college town.

Can you tell me about your pizzas?
It’s a lot like Chipotle. You go down the line and it’s a lot like an a la carte system, where you kind of just get whatever you want and in the end, its going to be the same price–it’s unlimited toppings. Our ingredients are mostly fresh, we prepare everything in house, especially our house-made dough and sauces. It’s a very organic process, there’s not going to be too much processing.

Do you know why you guys decided to open up in San Marcos?
Not specifically, I haven’t been informed by corporate, but I’m sure it has to do with being in proximity to campus.

What do you hope that people get out of the experience of coming here?
A new appreciation for pizza, absolutely. A different understanding of what you can do with a pie.

You’ve seen the business grow?
Oh yeah, we’ve definitely expanded our customer base for sure and improved our relationship with the town since we started. We’ve always been in close support of the community. The community will come to us and ask us if we’d sponsor things and we’ll create different sales events where part of our proceeds go toward a specific cause for the town. I’m not sure if that’s really growing, but we always have different ones and I’m sure as our business gains a reputation of doing that, we’ll start to be more involved in more important causes.

Any other thoughts/comments you’d like to add?
Our business originated in Southern California, and we have different customer bases in different pockets of the United States. We’ve got some stores in Minnesota, and we just started opening our base in Texas. This is our only location in San Marcos, but we also have one in Cedar Park and one in Mueller(sp?) which is close to Georgetown. That’s all for right now, but I think we might be opening another somewhere around South Congress, but I’m not too sure.

Come grab your slice:
301 N Guadalupe St #155, San Marcos, TX 78666

OPENED: October 24, 2016
SERVES: Craft beer and liquor, wings, chicken strips, sliders
FEATURES: 35 taps on hand, a variety of food choices

 

Learn More about Hooters!
Interview with Gilbert Escobar, General Manager at Hooters San Marcos

Could you tell me about Hooters?
Yes. Our concept is Hooters makes you happy. What that means is we are everywhere from the guy who wants to watch football or sports on TV to the families that want to come in and dine with us. We cater to all the needs, we have all menus for everybody and also when it comes to who are in to the craft beers and liquor, we have all the different style drinks and different kinds of taps. We have 35 taps on hand and our menu ranges from everything for kids, which would be like grilled cheese or chicken strips, or mini sliders to the adults, which we are known for our famous wings. Our wings, we feel we take it to the next level, we elevate it.

We have our traditional style, which is going to be bone-in and then we have naked, which a lot of people carry the naked, and then there’s a new one we’re actually in the test market for and it’s a smoke wing. It’s smoked for 18 minutes and then we go through and put a dry rub and it goes with it. It’s really good. It’s also more for the health conscious as well because you’re not frying it, it’s all 100% smoked.

Why did you guys decide to open up here in San Marcos?

We’ve been trying for a long time. Actually, San Marcos took a lot of negotiations for us to get here. My bosses boss, went to a lot of town meetings to get us here, we got shut down a couple of times because people thought we were going to be a lot more noisy and felt as well—what was said, I guess there was a Bikini’s that was here several years back and they didn’t have the best reputation and they thought that was going to reflect us when it has nothing to do with us. We actually had to go through and switch our spots to where now where we are located, there is going to be something else built where we were originally going to go. It all had to do with a lot of compliance’s in here, to make sure we were okay with the city.

It took a long time but we’re happy to be here, we’re really excited. The city and everyone around it is really happy that we’re here too. We’ve got nothing but great feedback from everybody. The community loves that we’re here, I mean Hooters is also one of those well-known icons and people do know about it and they’ve been traveling to either Austin or San Antonio or somewhere to go and now everybody’s like “yes, it’s in our backyard.” Everybody is really excited about it. There’s so much flow when it comes to traffic between San Antonia and Austin, it’s getting a lot of people’s attention as they come and they stop. It’s cool for San Marcos because it brings a lot more people that wouldn’t stop before; are not stopping in San Marcos as well, which is generating revenue for the city. It’s awesome.

We’re also one of the first footprints to have this style, the 20 foot ceilings, with over 50 TVs and we have one 9 inch different screens that creates one titan TV as well. As you can see right there, it’s a pretty big TV, it’s pretty cool.

Does this place get pretty packed on the weekends?

Very packed. I highly recommend you get here early. Cowboys games are big and it’s pretty cool to see it on Sunday to where the waves come. Like if the Packers are playing at noon, you have all the Packers fans, or whoever is playing at that time; they leave after that and then next the Texans fans come. You can tell whose playing by the wave of the fans. Except for the Cowboys, they come early and they stay late.

Surprisingly we have a large Spurs fan population in San Marcos, there’s been a lot of people who come up to watch the Spurs up here. It’s pretty cool, we didn’t expect that.

You know, at the end of the day it’s about the food, it’s about our image, which is our Hooter girl. We’re very fortunate to be in this city that has so many wonderful, beautiful looking Hooter girls in here and it was just fun creating the staff and having fun with it. It was an interesting experience.

What do you hope that people that do come out, take away from their experience coming out to your place?

I hope at the end of night they leave here satisfied, fulfilled and happy. Because Hooters makes you happy and the foundation of Hooters is our Hooter girl. Our Hooter girl image is iconic. They’re very entertaining, having fun and that’s what it’s about. It’s really about having fun with whatever you do that’s why we made it our concept, Hooters makes you happy. At the end of the day if everyone is having fun you’re going to enjoy yourself. As long as you have good food and TV and everything, everything just really goes together. At the end of the day, I want them to say, “I’m fulfilled, I’m full, I had a great time,” and as opposed to like another place, they’re going to be like, “I want to go see Suzy because I had a great time, she was my waitress and she really knew how to entertain and just had fun with me.”

They build kind of connection?

Exactly. That’s how it’s a little bit different from just regular waiting tables.

How many employees do you guys have here?

Hooter girls, I have about 87. Cooks, I have about 40.

That’s quite a bit, you guys opened up quite a bit of jobs.

Yeah, we’re actually one of the top busiest Hooters in the company. We’ve been hitting the ground running, having a great time. It wouldn’t have been without the support of San Marcos, the locals. I’ve been seeing people come in here, sometimes every day.

What would you say is next for your store here?

Currently our main thing is to try and get a little bit involved in the community, which we’ve already had people reach out, we’ve already done several charity events. Our main focus is to develop our Hooters and make sure it’s maintained and running efficiently and then to go out into the market. I want to do a lot more fundraisers and things like that with the community but in order for that to be successful, I need to make sure this store is running correctly. I’m forecasting, maybe not this year, but probably the beginning of next year, we’re going to go through and start looking at having some golf tournaments, getting more involved with the high school. Something involving Texas State, which would be awesome. I know they have the bobcat dollars for food, I would love to develop something for the students to where they can come in and it’s already a set meal where it comes with 6 wings, fries and includes a tip. It would also be something cool for them to venture out and not have the same things that they’re already doing on campus. I think that would be something really cool to get involved with the school that way.

There’s several different things and ideas that we have that we want to do, we just want to make sure everything is correct and up and running before we implement and start marketing and doing those things. Like I said, ever since we opened we’ve been very grateful to have the support from the city. This city really has come out, Chambers of Commerce comes out, everybody has come out and shown their support for Hooters. That’s a big deal. It really shows that we’re here and we’re not going anywhere and that we’re going to move forward and only get better. It’s one of those things that we’re trying to re-brand kind of our style to where we want to make sure everybody knows it’s for everybody.

Every couple of tables has something developed to look in the city. As you can see there’s a mural floating right there, over there is Texas State written on the walls and chalkboards. We want to be part of the city and it’s culture. We also have a couple of pictures of the square on there, that’s just kind of cool and a lot of restaurants don’t do that either. They have a corporate style.

Come grab your wings:
310 N IH-35, San Marcos, TX 78666