Your Pie Franchisee Introduces Mobile Pizza Oven to Drive Brand Awareness in Community

Jeff Rhoades probably never imagined that he’d be feeding his community by serving up nearly 400 pizzas within a three-hour time frame—but as a franchisee for Your Pie in Virginia Beach, he wouldn’t have things any other way.

Rhoades isn’t just any franchisee. After opening a restaurant for Your Pie in Virginia Beach during the spring of 2015, he became enamored with food trucks. He noticed plenty of taco trucks, BBQ trucks and cupcake trucks pulling up to bustling parks, festivals and beaches to feed hungry crowds, but there were very few pizza options to choose from.

That’s when Rhoades decided it was time to take matters into his own hands—he purchased a 14-feet-long trailer to tow one of Your Pie’s branded mobile pizza ovens. This way, he could bring the brand’s unique hand-crafted pies straight to Virginia Beach customers—fresh out of the oven.

With the goal of visiting local festivals, parties and other community events, Rhoades included a cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza and three or four of the brand’s specialty pies on the menu. Dough would be tossed and shaped in front of customers, and all ingredients would be chopped and assembled on site.

Rhoades officially hit the road in May 2016, and within a few short weeks, he experienced nothing short of a feeding frenzy.

“My first thought in introducing a mobile pizza oven was that it’d be great for brand awareness, and would ultimately help bring in more customers to our restaurant. It started as a fun side project—an accessory piece of sorts. We’d go to a few events here and there, and that’d be it. I had no idea what would happen the second I rolled out the oven to the public,” Rhoades said. “What it turned out to be was its own little store.”

To date, Rhoades has brought his mobile pizza oven to more than 50 events. One event that stands out in particular was a backyard Memorial Day party. The host had requested Your Pie’s infamous build-your-own approach, so he set up an assembly line for the guests.

“I was able to bring the true Your Pie experience straight to the guests. Watching them walk through the assembly line with smiles on their faces as they picked whatever toppings they wanted really reminded me why I decided to do this,” Rhoades said. “It’s such a unique and different experience—we do everything the Your Pie way, even when it’s on wheels.”

Based on the initial success that Rhoades has experienced with his mobile pizza oven so far, he’s hoping to eventually expand his operations. Rhoades said that this could entail hiring a team dedicated exclusively to their mobile efforts, as well as taking his truck outside of Virginia Beach to visit other communities, too.

“Seeing the way this mobile pizza oven has piqued the interest of both new and existing customers reminds me every day that Your Pie’s concept simply works—whether it’s in store or on the road,” Rhoades said. “This is a unique chance to bring the brand’s incredible pizzas to more people than ever before, and I’m proud to say that I’m helping to do that.”