Story by Alexandra Mortati | Photos courtesy of Crystal Scherer
This article is part of PMQ Pizza’s “12 Women to Watch“ series, in partnership with Women in Pizza and in celebration of Women’s Pizza Month. It’s an expanded version of the profile on Crystal Scherer featured in PMQ’s March 2026 issue.
With a background in school security, where she worked for 20-plus years, plus a stint studying counseling at college and a graphic apparel business, Crystal Scherer—now the co-owner of The Pizza Box 509 in Kennewick, Washington—never expected the pizza biz to win her over. In fact, it was her husband, Tyler, who got into pizza making, buying a pizza stone for their home oven when COVID hit. “We were making pizza all the time,” Scherer remembers. “Eventually, we got our first outdoor oven, and he was getting serious. He took a class and dialed in on the pizza. I would post pictures, and friends would tell us that they wanted our pizza.”
While Tyler started making pies for family, he also started to get serious about the craft. Scherer encouraged him to start selling the pizza and, in 2023, finally convinced him. “He needed to make sure he had it down right,” Scherer says. “He always says he saw himself going into something food-related. He loves to cook for people, but I never imagined myself in this business.”
Scherer used her apparel business experience to create a website for The Pizza Box 509 so that people could pre-order pizza on the weekends. “We’d sell out, and it blew my mind every single time,” Scherer says. “We’d have only 30 pizzas for a three-hour window, just testing the waters. We got to a point where we were doing this every weekend.”
Meanwhile, friends of the couple had a food truck at Summer’s Hub, an all-year food-truck food court in Kennewick, Washington, about a half-hour from their home. They convinced the budding pizza makers to sell their wares at the Hub. “We talked to the manager—and, mind you, we haven’t even built our trailer yet—but she tells us she’s not holding any spots and that they have another person from Seattle interested in doing pizza there. I told my husband we had to jump on this—it was our ticket out of [working in] the schools.”
‘Obstacles Are Going to Happen’
After Tyler quit his job and he and his dad built the trailer, the couple set up their Hub spot. Scherer worked double-duty: days at her school security job, nights and weekends at the food truck. “It took off faster than we thought it would,” she admits, though “one obstacle after another” cropped up. Wading through problems from permit issues to financing struggles, the couple persevered. “Obstacles are going to happen, so it’s about finding a way to overcome them instead of saying, ‘That’s it, we’re done,’” Scherer says. “We found a way to continue on. There were days where I was miserable. It was just really hard.”
The two-job workload was intense, but quitting her primary workplace required another leap into the unknown. “Business is either sink or swim, and sinking wasn’t an option,” Scherer says. “I kept thinking, ‘What if….?’ I’m an overthinker, but it was kind of do or die.”
Quitting her job, however, led Scherer to a closer relationship with the business. She immediately attended a pizza trade show, where she took a class hosted by Women in Pizza. “They asked who owns a pizzeria, and I raised my hand, but I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t belong,” she says. “I’m not like the women in here, doing all of these things and making dough. I wasn’t doing that at the time. I had just quit my job, so I was only taking orders. But, when I came back, I dove into every aspect. I do the books and social media. I watch videos. I do everything.”
As she launched herself into the business, Scherer realized she and her husband needed more help. After seeing a demo by pizzaiolo Leo Spizzirri at the show, she told Tyler they needed to reach out. “We’d all learn the same method that we could pass on as we hire,” Scherer says. “We took our oldest, who is 12, and went to Chicago to learn. Leo helped us beyond topping and stretching. We dialed in our dough recipe and came back full of knowledge: how to set up recipe cards, how to hire an employee, etc. Now, I’m stretching and making pizza, and I am part of this. Once we got our trailer and I was making pizza for customers, I told my husband, “Now I’m part of the pizza community.’”
A Family Affair
While finding a life-work balance is an ongoing challenge, the couple celebrated their first year with the Hub in July 2025, creating a solid reputation for The Pizza Box 509 in the process. “People would come for pizza, but they didn’t know us or our brand,” Scherer says. “We did a collab within the first month with the barbecue trailer at the Hub. We wanted our name attached to someone else. We did a smoked brisket pizza with their housemade chipotle sauce. The next month, we ran another special with another trailer. We did a lot of collabs with everyone in the beginning, but now we are picky about them. Now, people from other places come to check us out.”
While her graphic apparel company had to take a backseat to the growing pizzeria, Scherer now channels her creative energy into designing merchandise for The Pizza Box 509. Her original design, a character that resembles a dripping pizza slice, remains a customer favorite and forms the foundation of its merch line. “Creating merch has become my artistic escape, allowing me to keep that spark of creativity alive,” Scherer says. “I’ve started crafting designs for our shirts for different holidays, and recently, we launched a Christmas-themed sticker. Our goal is to release a new sticker design each month, something I’m always brainstorming and working on. The response to our merch has been incredible, and I’m constantly amazed by how many people buy and enjoy it.”
Scherer also remains active on social media—Facebook, Instagram and TikTok—and learns along the way while delegating when possible. After all, she does pretty much everything there is to do at the restaurant. “I take the orders, I make the pizza, I do the social, I check the emails, I do the payouts, I have to be a wife, I have to be a mom….” Scherer says. “Using AI to come up with post ideas has been really helpful. The other day, we were trying to figure out the cost of our new pepperoni. I was able to calculate the price per pizza with AI.”
Fortunately, pizza is a family affair with the Scherers—both of their children, at ages 12 and four, enjoy helping out with the family business. “I really emphasize that we want people to come and feel like family,” Scherer says. “Hospitality makes such a difference, and I’m trying to teach my son that at a young age. My husband and I are together 24/7, and we literally are best friends. It helps that we were friends before we got together. We don’t get sick of each other. It’s fun working with him. I’m able to do what I love with the person I love. Sometimes he gets on my nerves, but I get over it in five minutes, since I have to work with him….We tell each other where we are struggling.”
As a woman in pizza, Scherer finds that people don’t always acknowledge her. “When we talk to people, they always address my husband,” she says. “I could have been the one to make the pizza, and they will go and compliment him.”
Regardless of the many struggles she’s faced, Scherer’s advice for others is to go for it. “Things are always going to happen,” she says. “Life is never going to go the way you want it to go. It’s just a matter of continuing to move towards your goal. It isn’t going to be easy, but it will be worth it.”
Alexandra Mortati is the marketing director for Orlando Foods and founder of Women In Pizza, a not-for-profit organization that empowers women in the pizza industry to share their stories, display their talents, inspire innovations, and connect with one another and the world. The article has been edited from the original version that appeared on the Instagram account for Women In Pizza. Click here to learn more about the organization.
