Zalat: Great Customer Service + Great Pizza

The Woodlands doesn’t have a shortage of solid pizza spots. As our pizza list demonstrates, local residents have numerous excellent options when they get a craving for pizza. (And judging from analytics, that’s pretty often.)

So when we heard about Zalat opening in the Woodlands, we admit to not being terribly excited. Another pizza spot. How are they going to differentiate from all the other pizza spots out here?

The Company

The answer: A fanatical dedication to customer service. Obsession with quality. Treating front-line staff like partners, not replaceable cogs. The result is an engaged staff, and a superior product.

Khan Nguyen, the founder of Zalat, has a very different approach to running a pizza joint. We spoke with him for nearly an hour shortly after the Woodlands store opened, and we were both surprised and impressed by how he runs his business.

• Front-line staff are treated as partners, and have the opportunity for stock options. As the company succeeds and valuation grows, these employees share the wealth. That’s virtually unheard of in the restaurant business.
• Employees bake and sample pizzas frequently, and submit detailed critiques to company management. Problems that lead to substandard product are caught and corrected.
• Employees are empowered to redo any pizza that isn’t up to standards before the customer even sees it. We experienced this firsthand.
• We ordered an 18″ Pepperoni Masterclass pizza from them, and arrived at the pickup time (their app is really slick and easy to use). The manager on staff apologized, and said there would be a slight delay; there wasn’t quite enough pepperoni on the pizza to meet their standards, so they had a new pizza in the oven. It was ready within 10 minutes, and we were given BOTH pizzas to take home, along with an apology for the inconvenience. Both pizzas were delicious; we’ve never seen this kind of proactive quality control from a pizza place. Seriously impressive.

The Pizza

Zalat’s unique approach is impressive, but if the product isn’t great, the company won’t sell many pizzas. Fortunately, Zalat’s focus on quality pays off handsomely for the customer.

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Our benchmark for a pizza place is its pepperoni pizza; it’s also the most popular kind of pizza in America. Zalat’s is a masterclass in pizza making, and it’s cleverly entitled the Pepperoni Masterclass. Copious amounts of 100% beef pepperoni. Oregano. Cracked black pepper. crushed garlic. A beautifully bubbly crust, with just the right hint of greasiness. We’ve started adding a drizzle of their excellent balsamic for a hint of acid and sweetness. The result is one of the best pepperoni pizzas we’ve ever had; not only has Zalat earned a spot in our regular pizza rotation, it’s become our first option.

Other pizzas are excellent as well. The Zealot is their version of a supreme, with beef pepperoni, Italian sausage, salami, red onions, black olives, mushrooms, red bell pepper, and chives. It’s another excellent pizza, with a deft balance of toppings: Plentiful, but not overpowering the crust, high quality cheese, and house made sauce.

Conclusion

Restaurants are having a tough time in the post-COVID landscape. Staffing has become a problem; during the shutdown, many restaurant workers realized that they survived just fine without a low-paying job and an abusive boss. After the restart, restaurants are struggling to attract quality staff, and the customer experience suffers because of this.

Khan Nguyen has come up with a very smart solution to the dilemma: He treats his employees as valued partners, and compensates them as such. The result is a team of quality people who take pride in turning out a quality product as if their personal success depends on it… because it does. We hope more restaurants follow Zalat’s lead. The result is delicious.