Adam Kado and Hosie Thurmond were already longtime best friends when they opened Slice Brothers Pizza in Minneapolis four years ago. It was the city’s first Black-owned pizzeria, and one of their major goals was to create generational wealth for people of color.
That goal hasn’t changed for Kado and Thurmond, even as today’s stark economic realities have forced them out of the pizza business. Now they’re shifting gears by selling the brand to their employees.
At one point, Slice Brothers had expanded to five locations, creating jobs in their communities and offering affordable New York-style pies currently priced at $25.99 for an extra large and $10.99 for a 10” cheese pizza. College athletes jumped onboard as celebrity spokespeople for the brand, including Darius Taylor of the Minnesota Gophers and the Utah Utes’ Terrence Brown, a Minnesota native.
In 2024 Slice Brothers Pizza even received the 2024 Game Changer Award from the Minnesota Twins for its dedication to the community. That earned Slice Brothers a space to sell their slices at Twins games, elevating its profile statewide. Slice Brothers has actively promoted student literacy, including working with a state legislator and St. Paul’s public schools last year on a bill to fund pizza vouchers for students who achieved their reading goals.
In September 2023, Slice Brothers Pizza was nearing the height of its success. But the owners kept a tight grip on their ideals. As Kado told Twin Cities Eater at that time, “We have to do this the right way, where we’re not just turning into fat cats—we still have our ethical code and our morals and our values that have gotten us to this place. Finding balance is tough. Me and Hosie are just guys from the neighborhood, and now we’re in this position. Man, we’re in a different world meeting different people. We’re really pleased with that. But it comes with a lot.”
“A lot,” as it turned out, included soaring labor and food costs, to the point that keeping prices affordable became a nearly insurmountable challenge. Despite Slice Brothers’ fame and acclaim, the foot traffic just wasn’t there. To survive, Kado told Minneapolis Magazine recently, he and his partner had considered “going premium” instead of focusing on value. But in the end, they have chosen a different path.
Every pizzeria closure is a heartbreaker—especially one with such authentically noble ambitions—and Slice Brothers had already shut down two stores prior to this latest announcement. Of the remaining three locations, two more will soon be closed soon. But on the positive side, the one store that’s still standing—located in Minneapolis’ Midtown Global Market—will present an opportunity for team members to become team captains and coaches. They will now control their own destiny.
That almost didn’t happen. Kado and Thurmond had been ready to close Slice Brothers entirely. Then, they had a realization. “We were like, wait, hold on—we have all this equipment. We created a lot of jobs throughout this. I don’t see why we can’t put it to good use and keep it going,” Kado said in the Minneapolis Magazine interview.
So on November 21, Kado and Thurmond will turn that remaining store over to an employee-owned collective led by Slice Brothers’ longtime managers.
Kado said he and Thurmond had a lot to learn as pizzeria entrepreneurs when they got started. “We didn’t have mentors or anything like that, so we just figured things out. But you have a social responsibility as a capitalist to run a productive business, from your suppliers to your employees to the people that you partner with. The wisest thing you can do, if the numbers aren’t penciling, is to say no and move on to a different endeavor. I would have loved to keep it forever, franchise it one day, and pass it on to our kids. But I think that would have been more than what was financially feasible.”
It should be noted that employee-owned independent pizzerias are thriving around the country. The worker-owned co-op Cheeseboard Collective has been going strong in Berkeley, California, since 1971. The six-store Beau Jo’s in Colorado became employee-owned in 2023 after 50 years in business. Then there’s Extra Extra Pizza in Buffalo, which launched in 2022 as an employee-owned shop and has proven very popular with guests who appreciate its commitment to paying every employee a living wage.
If Slice Brothers’ staff can make the model work, Kado and Thurmond’s goal to create generational wealth remains achievable. Meanwhile, the two founders enjoyed the ride while it lasted.
“In the long run, it didn’t play out how we imagined,” Kado told Minneapolis Magazine, “but I think there’s still a lot to look back on and be proud of—where we started with the 300-square-foot location to five locations, whether or not those locations lasted a long time. It’s indicative of the work and the support that we got from not just Minneapolis, but the entire Twin Cities community.”
