By Charlie Pogacar

A pizzeria doesn’t need to have a huge menu in order to be successful. In fact, there are many advantages to having a smaller menu. First, customers often appreciate it. Most consumers have had the overwhelming experience of being handed a menu with a million choices. It can be downright debilitating. 

In a recent review of Pizza Richmond, a new slice shop in Philadelphia, James Beard Award-winning food writer Jason Sheehan praised the joint’s limited menu. Pizza Richmond has five types of pizza—offered both as whole pies and by the slice—in addition to a pair of salads and ice cream. That’s it, that’s all Pizza Richmond sells. 

“The smartest thing Pizza Richmond ever did was not very much at all,” Sheehan wrote in his review for Philadelphia Magazine. “It’s a restaurant that seems to exist to prove the axiom that it’s better to be very good at one thing than mediocre at a lot of things. That success lies in picking your one thing and doing it very well.”

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This is a philosophy shared by Fran Garcia, co-founder, owner and operator of Artichoke Basille’s Pizza. In fact, Garcia’s menu takes this idea a step further: Aside from some grab-and-go beverages, you literally will not find anything but pizza at Artichoke. No sides, no salad, thanks for coming. 

“We are not a place you come to if you want a pie with half mushrooms, half peppers,” Garcia said. “We don’t even do toppings. We have a limited menu, and everything we do, we try to do it really well. That makes us consistent across the board: Come here, get some good, hot-and-ready pizza, and hang out and eat it or hop in a cab and take off. That’s our business model.” 

This was a decision Garcia arrived at based on previous experience. Garcia was raised in a family of restaurateurs, and he saw how complex it could be to run a restaurant with a million different options. This is a second, and most pivotal reason, why having a limited menu is advantageous: It’s simply easier for a pizzeria from an operational point of view. 

“My mom had a restaurant with 150 seats,” Garcia said. “The menu had around 20 appetizers and 30 entrees. It was a huge menu, and that required a lot of work and stress. With a menu like that, somebody can keep you on the phone for a half hour just to order one dinner.” 

Garcia’s simple concept has also been easy to replicate. He’s grown the brand to 15 different locations and even begun franchising Artichoke Basille’s Pizza. While bringing new franchisees on board is never easy for a host of reasons, it’s a lot less challenging when the menu itself is easy to learn and execute. 

Garcia has now owned a pizza business since 2008, and he’s opened up multiple restaurants and pizza concepts. There are a lot of headaches that come up, and Garcia looks all the wiser to have found little ways to minimize those headaches. 

“I love making pizza,” Garcia said. “I love the craft of it, taking pies out of the oven, putting on the basil and the cheese. The part that I hated about working in [other restaurants] was all of the ‘Do you want salad with that? What kind of dressing?’ Somebody has to put all of that together, and that’s not what I wanted to do. I knew I couldn’t and wasn’t going to please everyone, but for somebody who just wants a kickass slice of pizza, they’ll come to Artichoke and they’ll leave very happy.”