By Rick Hynum | Photos by Nathan Baerreis

When you think about it, a pizza buffet concept in a small Southern town sounds like a slam dunk. But think about it a little more, then factor in a made-from-scratch, Neapolitan-inspired dough and a tourist-friendly location (a nature lover’s paradise in the Appalachian Mountains), and that sounds like a lot of work. But Lizz Aquarian, general manager of Downtown Pizza Co. in Murphy, North Carolina, isn’t complaining. She wouldn’t be happy if she didn’t have local families, school groups, and mobs of hungry hikers and anglers to feed day in and day out.

The crowds pour in, raid the buffet bar for pizzas and salads, put in special requests, shove tokens into arcade games to win prizes—and then they’re gone, making room for the next throng of famished fans. 

The pies keep right on coming, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday through Saturday (12 to 4 p.m. on Sundays), often with surprising topping combos, because Aquarian likes to play while she’s working. A dessert pizza with cream cheese, strawberry-rhubarb pie filling and streusel? Even if the guests didn’t ask for it, they might get it, and they’ll be glad they did. A pie with Bavarian cream and pineapple? Beef, broccoli and feta cheese? Cinnamon and bacon? Just wait a few minutes, and it’s probably on the way, fresh and hot from the oven.

In other words, the family-owned Downtown Pizza Co. isn’t your standard cafeteria-style buffet operation. It’s a freestyle smorgasbord of tantalizing flavors, textures and hues, with Aquarian reigning over it all—the benevolent queen of the feast, sporting a huge and elaborate pizza tattoo on her arm that shows she means business.

“I want to get the word out about what we do,” Aquarian says, “because I think it’s on a level that’s kind of bizarre.” Mind you, she’s speaking in terms of quality and quantity. For this past Fourth of July, she personally made about 145 pizzas. “I always argue that a buffet is the hardest of restaurants, simply because it’s you versus a crowd,” she notes. “I have a crew of anywhere from four to seven people, and I’m feeding anywhere from 80 to 125 or 150 people, if it’s really busy. And not only do we produce all these pizzas every day—making the dough, making our own sauce with our own recipe—there’s a lot of hand-crafting that goes into it….We’re a seven-day-a-week test kitchen, and the people who benefit are our customers.”

From Cajun Country to the Mountains

Aquarian’s parents, Kathy and Steve Cousin, owned a car detailing business in Geismar, Louisiana, when they decided to move to Murphy and launch Downtown Pizza Co. But, prior to that, they’d owned Domino’s Pizza stores—three in Massachusetts and one in New Hampshire for Kathy, and one in Pennsylvania for Steve—so they knew a thing or two about pizza. Steve even ran his own independent pizza shop at one time.

Newly arrived in the idyllic Murphy, the couple was raring to get back into the pizza business. “They actually purchased a pizza oven before they had a place to put it,” Aquarian recalls. “They really just latched on to this idea of having a pizza restaurant. And, serendipitously, they found this building that we’re in today, which is a historic downtown building.”

What Murphy needed, the Cousins knew, was high-quality pizza served fresh and fast. They started out with oven-baked wings and subs on the menu, too. “But they realized their pizza was becoming popular when they didn’t have enough room in the ovens to keep the pizza going,” their daughter says. “It was being blocked by the wings.”

They quickly remembered a key rule to restaurant success: Focus on what you do really well. The wings and the sandwiches needed to go. “So they whittled the menu down to two things—pizzas and salads,” Aquarian says. “I’m used to just offering these two items, but sometimes I forget that it’s a bit niche. If you’re only going to have those two items, you have to meet customers’ expectations and do them right.”

“Our kitchen is designed like a clock, so 12:00 is the front register, 6:00 is the dish pit, and the bars are in between. So we really are putting on a show every single day.”

—Lizz Aquarian

Living in an Experimental Pizza World

Downtown Pizza Co. draws some inspiration from the Neapolitan style without being bound by its strict rules. After all, you have to turn the pies around fast when you’re scrambling to keep two buffet bars stocked for a space that can seat up to 150 people, including the main lobby and the game room, informally called the Party Zone. In the store’s early days, the kitchen team baked the pies in a stone deck oven, but, as the business grew, a conveyor oven proved to be a better choice for the high-volume production required on a daily basis.

“Every single day, we make approximately 200 to 250 pounds of dough,” Aquarian says. “We use a 00-style flour, more of a fine grind but still high-gluten flour, so it’s going to be really stretchy. We make the dough fresh every single morning and age it in our walk-in cooler for between one and two days. So we’re producing it from scratch, hand-rolling and hand-tossing it every morning.”

One batch of dough uses 50 pounds of flour and 33 pounds of water. “It’s more of a high-hydration ratio, which makes our dough really light and crispy,” Aquarian explains. “And we make 10-liter batches of sauce. For example, I made 80 liters of sauce to prep for July Fourth. We don’t cook our sauce. We let it just marry with all of the other ingredients, and I use a really cool mixer that’s like a giant immersion blender.”

Aquarian might crank the pies out, but enormous care—and pride—go into her dough and crusts. “With this conveyor oven, we have to make sure that our crust is airy and light, but you still want it to have a chew,” she says. “You don’t want it to be crunchy, like a cracker. And this is a 500° double conveyor that we have. So that’s something else we have to think about when we’re making our dough. We have to think about what the weather is going to be like; if it’s too humid or it’s raining, not only will my cheese brown more, but I feel like my dough gets a little too soft.  I look out for those nuances day in and day out. Maybe I’ll go down to one oven to make it cooler when it’s raining—just little things like that that I’ve noticed throughout the years.”

“Every single day, we make approximately 200 to 250 pounds of dough. We use a 00-style flour, more of a fine grind but still high-gluten flour, so it’s going to be really stretchy.”

—Lizz Aquarian

A typical “round” of pizzas for the buffet consists of a cheese, a pepperoni, a meat and a veggie, while chicken-based specialties—like Chicken Teriyaki or Chicken Alfredo—add variety. Dessert pizzas end the meal on a sweet note. Pies are rotated out every 20 minutes, and Aquarian’s team keeps a watchful eye on the bar.

“The great thing about our space is that it’s designed really well, so there is no back of house or front of house,” Aquarian says. “We’re all front of house, with an open-kitchen concept, so everyone can see in and we can see out, and we have close proximity to both of our bars. Our kitchen is designed like a clock, so 12:00 is the front register, 6:00 is the dish pit, and the bars are in between. So we really are putting on a show every single day. Our customers can see us, and we can see them. I can be at my make station and just glance over to see what my customers are eating. That saves time, and we can be aware of what the crowd’s eating and what they’re not into so much. And I can also say, ‘Hey, that pizza’s been out for too long. You need to toss it.’”

But let’s backtrack to that comment about a “seven-day-a-week test kitchen.” Aquarian’s employees follow the pizzeria’s recipe book—she doesn’t believe in charts on the walls—but they also have the flexibility to get creative. “We are living in this experimental pizza world every day,” she says. “Sure, we create your standard classics, but we can also deviate from that and have fun in a way that not only delights our customers but makes it interesting for ourselves. Everyone gets a say in what we’re going to make. If somebody has an idea for a pizza, we let them try it, even if we think it may not work. It’s exciting—not only did they come up with the idea, but they can personally make it and get a customer to try it. You can’t do that in your average restaurant.”

Customers, too, have a say in the buffet’s menu. With a standard pizzeria buffet, what you see is what you get. But Downtown Pizza Co. serves up custom pies on request at no extra charge, Aquarian says. “That’s well-known locally. So people know they can say, ‘Hey, I want a [pie with] sausage and jalapeños, please.’ We’ll fix it and put it on the bar so everyone can enjoy it.”

Aquarian also lets her own inner artist come out and play. She devised that aforementioned strawberry-rhubarb dessert pizza, for example. “One of my favorite things to play with is color. I’m a big fan of trying to balance out the colors on my buffet. So, if I want to get a little weird with it, I might do a spinach, tomato and feta with some banana peppers. The yellow really pops with the white of the feta and the red of the tomato, and it’s really tasty. It’s a nice alternative to a regular vegetarian pie, and it often surprises people. And I’m really liking this cheddar blend that I have and find myself topping ham-and-pineapple pizzas or meat combos with just a little bit of cheddar. It adds this beautiful color, and it really complements most things, too. I always have a certain topping that I’m kind of obsessed with at the moment, so I’ll experiment, play with it and put it out there.”

A Family Business for Families

It’s important to note that Downtown Pizza Co. is a woman- and veteran-owned company; Aquarian’s mother, Kathy, is now the sole proprietor, as Steve has retired, and she served in the U.S. Army. Additionally, Aquarian’s husband, Sequoyah, and brother, Sean, are managers.

It’s a family business for families. Kids and parents alike come for the pizza and stay for the arcade games in the Party Zone. “For $1, you get four tokens,” Aquarian says. “The machines take anywhere from one to four tokens per play. And then [the players] take their tickets to us, and we weigh them on a scale….We have a prize counter at the front register, with everything from little army men to Slinkys and big teddy bears. So it definitely has that old-school nostalgic feel, and the kids love it.”

“One of my favorite things to play with is color. I’m a big fan of trying to balance out the colors on my buffet.”

—Lizz Aquarian

Downtown Pizza Co., is, in a word, special, and the family aims to keep it that way. Aside from a second store in Blairsville—which does booming business in its own right, although it’s considerably smaller than the flagship location—replicating or scaling such a concept would be no easy feat. And they’re just not interested.

“I think it is [unusual],” Aquarian says. “It’s rare because it requires the strong backing of a crew. You have to have people that believe in what you’re doing, have the physical stamina to do it, and care enough to do it. There are really successful corporate chains [specializing in buffets], so the concept itself isn’t novel. But I think the reason you don’t see independents doing this is because it is so difficult.”

The Aquarians also own a wedding venue across the street—complete with, yes, pizza weddings. Their hands are full. “We’re pretty happy with what we have,” Aquarian says. “I don’t think I could devote much time elsewhere. This place needs all of me, that’s for sure.”   

Rick Hynum is PMQ’s editor in chief.

The ABCs of Buffet Management

Lizz Aquarian, general manager of Downtown Pizza Co., is keenly aware of the “optics” of a buffet restaurant. “There is a stigma around a buffet,” she says. “And we are constantly challenging it. We still try to overcome that from the optics side every day, even though we’ve been open 23 years.” For starters, she puts the restaurant’s health inspection score front and center at the cash register. “It’s the first thing you see when you walk in,” she says. But she also teaches employees their ABCs: Always Be Cleaning. “You’re just going to see us cleaning constantly,” she says. “It’s something we try to be visible about. We also provide plastic gloves and hand sanitizer at the end of each buffet bar. You’re seeing a clean lobby, clean uniforms, clean tables and chairs….You have to constantly remind people, ‘Wash your hands. When you hit this door, that means you wash your hands.’ All eyes are on you. And what it comes down to is people just want to see you cleaning.”