By Tracy Morin
If necessity is the mother of invention, Home Slice Pizza in Austin, Texas, is a perfect example—born of founding owner Jen Strickland’s need for authentic New York-style pies in the Lone Star State’s Live Music Capital. Celebrating 20 years in November 2025, the brand has landed on multiple best-of lists and expanded to four locations.
However, as the brainchild of Jen, her husband, Joseph Strickland, and a partner, Terri Hannifin (Jen’s good friend and former college roommate), Home Slice Pizza’s growth has been strategic and steady. After opening the original dine-in location, the trio followed its success with More Home Slice, a takeout and slice operation just across the parking lot, in 2010. A third location in Austin opened in 2018, and the first shop outside of Austin—in Houston’s Midtown neighborhood—launched in December 2022.
On the cusp of celebrating two decades, Jen sat down with PMQ to discuss Home Slice’s journey, keys to success, and how the team will mark this major milestone.
PMQ: Tell us about the origins of Home Slice. What was its mission at the outset?
Jen Strickland: We opened in November 2005. We started it because I moved to Austin from New York City, and I was tired of chasing down the style of pizza I loved so much and grew up eating. There were very few pizza options back then, but when a new one would open and call themselves “New York-style,” I would race to try it and be disappointed every time.
Around that time, I was gifted a cookbook that revealed the trade secrets, so I started making it myself in my kitchen. The results were infinitely better than what I was tasting out in the world. At the same time, I felt the calling to be an entrepreneur. I’ve always loved people and grew up around food and hospitality, so it just made sense to give it a shot.
The mission of Home Slice Pizza is to create an Austin institution based on the original, unfailing goodness of authentic New York-style pizza, rooted in the inherent joy of doing and caring for others, and unwavering in our belief that we can make the world a better place, one customer at a time. We have a unique vision that incorporates the culture that inspires us, with next-level hospitality.
Home Slice Pizza is what pizza—and the experience of eating it—should aspire to. We opened with the lofty goal of becoming the most popular pizzeria in Austin, one with a line out the door and customers happy to wait in it, while also setting an example for and supporting the culture at large, including music, art, film, literature and community initiatives.
PMQ: Was the business immediately successful?
Strickland: Yes! We were shocked by the welcome we received and the amount of business we were doing from the get-go. And so grateful for the patience and support of our customers, because we made a lot of mistakes back then.
We didn’t do anything to attract customers besides putting our name in the window as we were doing the buildout. Austin was small back then, and word-of-mouth about us doing the New York style spread fast. But we kept those initial customers and grew more through hospitality and making right by our mistakes.
PMQ: How has Home Slice grown and evolved since opening its doors?
Strickland: Our original location was immediately too small for the demand, so when the building across the parking lot came up for lease four years later, we jumped at it and moved our takeout and slice operation there. Then we stayed put for many years until trusted staff had grown into leaders and wanted more opportunities. Some eventually became partners. Then, we opened Houston in 2022, working hard to make it feel like a neighborhood pizza joint in a buzzing Houston neighborhood. My husband and partner, Joseph, is from Houston, so that was also a draw.
PMQ: How was the experience of opening a location in a new city—what did you learn in that process?
Strickland: So many things. It may be the same state, but so much is totally different [in Houston]. I don’t think we had a typical experience opening, since we initiated the project before COVID, and the pandemic caused many expensive delays. We stuck it out, though, and are glad we did.
PMQ: What strategies do you use to attract customers?
Strickland: We’ve never advertised; instead, we’ve put our marketing budget into sponsorships and community donations, and we give back a lot that way. Social media was born halfway through being in business, so it has given us a way to stay in direct touch with our customers. We use social media to showcase our company values, and it seems to be working.
PMQ: What advice would you give someone just starting out in pizza—any lessons you’ve learned or advice you’ve been given along the way?
Strickland: Dream your dream! Ask for advice! Avoid the restaurant naysayers! Visualize the work life you want and then create it! Don’t try to stuff too many pizzas in your oven at once! Label the sugar so you don’t mistake it for salt! Be extra-picky about the people you hire!
PMQ: What have been some challenges you’ve faced? And what are you most proud of after 20 years in business?
Strickland: There are a million challenges, ongoing! At first, I would take so many things personally: employees I loved leaving, every single thing in the restaurant breaking, and then breaking again. We’ve survived power outages, flooding, freezing, freak snowstorms, you name it. We used to have a joke that if you could ask, “Who quit, what broke?” every morning and stay chill through the answers, you had arrived. And all that was regular until COVID. That, my friend, was unlike anything we had experienced before. I’m really proud we survived that and are a stronger company because of it.
PMQ: How will you celebrate 20 years in business?
Strickland: We are bringing back our charity event, Carnival o’ Pizza, on November 15, which we began to celebrate our first anniversary in 2006, until 2016. It’s a beloved neighborhood, action-packed, family-friendly event featuring Home Slice exclusive games like Pepperoni Pitch, Canned Calamity, Pin the Stache On the Queen, Fishing for Chovie, and the Peewee Pizzaiolo Table! We’re also bringing back the legendary Hands On an Eggplant Sub (H.O.E.S.) challenge, along with box folding, dough tossing and, of course, pizza eating competitions (pictured above)! Proceeds will benefit Foundation Communities. We’ve invited back original employees, and many are actually coming in from out of town to help celebrate! And, this time, we are ending the day with a Beastie Boys cover band.
PMQ: What are your plans for future growth?
Strickland: That’s a hard question, because restaurant work keeps you so present. That’s one of the things I like about it. But I guess I would say that we would like to continue making customers happy and continue growing the careers of the like-minded people on our staff. We took a long time to expand, and we will continue to evaluate and execute new opportunities in areas we love—thoughtfully, humbly and playfully.
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
