PapillionBusinesses.com Interview with Evan Cleveland of Grace Pizza and Shakes, Papillion

Papillion Businesses is here with…

Evan Cleveland.

Please tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got here.

I’m from Bellevue, Nebraska. I went to Bellevue West High School all four years. I didn’t go to college straight out of high school; I kind of took a gap year. Then I went to UNO for a year and figured out it really wasn’t my thing, and then I went to work at Cheddar’s. One of my friends got me a job there. I worked there for about a year, and then they asked me to watch the front of the house for a little bit and I started becoming a manager and doing managerial roles. Then I moved to the kitchen for a little bit. And then Joe Gomez, the guy who kind of brought me in this place to meet Adrian and them, he said, “Hey, man, just keep kicking it in the restaurant industry.” And I said, “Okay,” and then I met Adrian and them and they had an opportunity for me to open a store in Houston. So I was like, “Why not? Let’s take a step out and see what’s going on,” so I did it for about 10 months. I worked at the Houston location that we opened and all the other locations they have there. And then I worked at 4 to 1 for about a month and a half as well. So I’ve kind of been bouncing around and stuff, and then this came along, and we are here now about  5 to 2 weeks. I hit the ground running and the business is growing, but let’s  just keep it that way as well.

So you were able to get back to Nebraska?

Yes, it was kind of like my first venture out into a new city or living somewhere new besides home. It was hard for the first couple of months, I’d say, but once you get to know everybody around you, it kind of gets more comfortable. What my mom says is “Never be comfortable in the place you’re at. If you’re comfortable, then that means something’s not going right. So if you’re uncomfortable, it’s okay to be a little bit uncomfortable. That means you’re growing in some aspects of your life.

That’s really good advice for everybody in every walk of life.

Yes, ma’am.

Tell me a little bit about Grace. Is this a franchise, too?

No, we aren’t a franchise. We’re pretty small right now. We’re looking to expand a lot more into a franchise and more corporate world in the future, probably in the next 5 to 8 years, hopefully. We have five Grace locations: three in Houston, one in Florida, and this is the fifth one. Grazia means “Grace” in Italian, and Grazia Italian Kitchen is the main restaurant where they do all the Italian cuisines and dishes. They have a wood fired oven there as well. But this Grace and all of Adrian’s businesses started in 1990 when he and his small Italian family first went to make pizza in New York. I forgot the specific name of the family, but he’s been doing it since 1990 and kind of took some of the recipes and made it his own in a way. Like, he put his own ingredients in them and all that stuff. And now we’re here at the fifth Grace. But he’s been working really hard. He’s brought a team together, all of us, so that’s kind of how we are.

I came and checked it out Sunday, and service was great. Food was great.

Okay, that’s good. I’m always in the back, so I have that little gap. I can see people, but you never know who’s who because there’s so many people walking through the door.

It was pretty busy.

Yeah. And people don’t really care. They just sit outside, too. It doesn’t matter if it’s windy or not.

And it’s Nebraska, so we’re also wearing sandals with no socks, and shorts in the winter.

Oh, yeah.

You’re a native, so you know that’s normal here.

Oh, much normal. Take out the trash in socks and some shorts. But yeah, I like it a lot. This place is gonna grow, especially in the spring. We’re gonna have a patio out back. I think we’re gonna have anywhere from 30 to 40 seats.

Besides what I’m seeing in front?

Yeah, the front. So the front we can’t really do, because that’s more of the city’s.

So you put in tables for people from the city to enjoy there?

No, the city does that. So anything out front’s all the city’s. All the plants, all that stuff, they take care of that stuff for us. We asked them to put two trash cans out front just because people like to order out and just eat out front. So ideally we can’t serve them out there, because it’s some law, I guess, this food law and stuff, but if we have a permit out back, then we can go ahead and put tables out there.

Where will the tables be going?

Oh, so right here, where the stairs are, and the brick wall fence right there. Tables all the way, that way. And maybe when Brownies brick wall starts, we’ll have a little canopy thing on top to cover up from rain and snow, and then, like, in the winter we’ll put down sheets, and this has..

Let me know when you get that going so I can take pictures of it.

I’m excited. I think very early spring is when he wants to get it done.

Okay. Tell me a little bit about the menu and maybe highlight some of your favorites or something.

So yeah, our menu, like I said, Grati Italian Kitchen is the main everything. Everything that we do is because of Grazia.

Are they in Florida?

They’re in Texas… Pearland, Texas. So, as you see, some of the pastas on the back of the menu… let’s just start with the pastas. Some of those are from Grazia (0:06:15), that’s a famous one down in Texas. The Pasta Mediterranean is also a famous one down in Texas. Obviously, a regular Alfredo, a regular for spaghetti, always goes good for some people. I’m pretty sure the 100% ones are from Grazia. The Supreme Grace, that’s ours. That’s one of my favorites. I guess that’s also one of the local favorites as well, here, that I started to notice. The (0:06:40) Meat Wagon is also another favorite of mine. A lot of the meat lover stuff. But the reason why it’s named the “Meat Wagon RC Ranch” is because we get our beef from a ranch down in Texas, a family-owned. local business owned. from RC Ranch, and it’s all… they get Wagyu cuts and all that stuff. So that’s why… hence to the Wagyu Meatballs is because of RC Ranch.

Ah. (0:07:04) was wondering. That’s an unusual meat to be in a meatball, at least in this area. We haven’t even had very much of it.

Yeah. And Adrian just loves the Wagyu cuts. At Grazia’s they do a lot of steaks, a lot of Wagyu, all that stuff. But he kind of wanted to infuse it into the Grace menu, so ever since that, we’ve been just doing the Wagyu, and it’s just… everybody knows the fish oils are pretty high in salmon and all that. So the oils that you see in the fish oils you can see in the Wagyu meat because of how tender and how the ingredients…

Wow.

So yeah, it’s pretty nice. I actually…also, another one I would say would be my favorite would be the Garcia Pizza. It’s a jalapeno ranch base… made in house ranch chicken marinade, cherry tomatoes, red onions, and a little bit of jalapenos to give it a spice and a little neutral throughout all the sweet, and the tomatoes and onions. Let’s see. Oh, another popular in this area I’ve seen as well is the Sweet Perfection white garlic base with our Wagyu meatballs, ricotta, a little bit of garlic, and a little bit of red peppers, with hot honey to finish. So that’s a popular one, I think… yeah, we’ve sold a couple hundred of them in a couple weeks. It’s pretty crazy. But also I would say the Caprese Salad is pretty popular for people who just are like going on the vegan side. They just want salad, cheese, and a little bit of tomatoes on top. And then the sandwiches, I would say the two most popular ones are going to be the Great White Buffalo and the Adrian’s Art. They just sell like crazy at lunchtime around here. A lot of people love sandwiches around here for lunch. But yeah, let’s see… a new addition, actually, this year would be our Sausage a la Vodka. We made that in the Houston Heights store in about March, and we added it, and it just did really good to where we were like, “Let’s just add it to the menu.” So that’s another favorite of mine. But yeah, I would say that would be my favorite in a little run-through on the menu. Do you have any questions on anything?

No, but it’s called Grace Pizza and…

Shakes. So our shake menu… our over-the-top shakes. Hootie’s not here, but Hootie’s our shake master guy. He joined about two and a half, three years ago. He obviously has a shake named after him. It’s called Hootie’s Cookie Shake. But every week we have a new special, so usually we’re going to stick with the celebrations on the weekends. Celebration Cake is sprinkles inside vanilla. You get a giant cake on top with a sparkler. We light the sparkler. Whipped cream all over, sprinkles all over. And the sparkler just shoots like it’s somebody’s birthday. And if it is somebody’s birthday, we would love to come say “Happy Birthday,” which we normally do. But the Brownie Bliss as well, that’s a normal here; that’s going to be on the regular menu. It’s basically a chocolate shake with a big brownie on top with a lot of whipped cream and a cherry.

I’m looking forward to that on a different day when I don’t have a lot of meetings.

That is a great one. That sells a lot here also.

Like at the end of all the day with …

Yeah, that will put you in a coma really quick; I’ll be honest with you. Sugar coma. But obviously an Oreo Overload is basically a regular cookies and cream shake. That’s what a lot of people like around here. Or just if you want to be plain and simple, just go with the classic strawberry, vanilla, or chocolate. That is a pretty popular one for kids. But a few of them that we haven’t introduced would be a Cinnamon Heaven and a Reese’s, which I want to get going here in the next month or two, hopefully. But we have a lot of ideas on shakes. In Houston, we do do Boozy Shakes which have a little bit of alcohol in them, but due to liquor licenses and stuff, I don’t think we can have that in the back. So we just kind of want to stay away from those laws, not to get in trouble, but hopefully maybe in the next couple months as well we can incorporate that up front and stuff. But other than that, I think the shake menu, I think it definitely can feed three. If you really want it, if you want a shake by yourself, go ahead, but I wouldn’t advise. But if you really want a shake, I would say order it for the table. If you have four or more (people), I’d say two or more shakes, when that shake flies. But my favorite would probably be one of our specials, which would be a Mother’s Day Shake we did one time for Mother’s Day this year, which was just basically strawberries, a brownie, and just whipped cream all over the place and everything. It was amazing. That was one of my favorites, but we’ll bring shakes and specials here in in the next couple of months.

What makes your shakes different? I’m guessing that’s quite a bit.

So our ingredients, we literally…the chocolate chips, everything’s Hershey’s. We love Hershey’s. A lot of people love Hershey’s as well. It’s our national chocolate. Let’s see what else… I’d say our over-the-top whipped cream. We usually do hand-whipped cream, but just due to… the kids need to learn how to do all the stuff with the whipped cream on top. I would say that the whipped cream would be the main one.

So the other, with the hand-whipped cream, will be coming later?

Yeah, it would be coming later. But then also I think just the art and love people put into the shakes when they make them, I would say would be the next key thing—the effort to make them look pretty and beautiful. And then when it hits that table and we see the kids’ faces or even the adults’ faces, it’s pretty cool to see as well. The appearance is never the first thing, but it’s how it tastes.

There’s that old saying, “You eat with your eyes first.”

Yep, you eat with your eyes first, and when you see those eyes, you’re like, “Oh, my gosh.”

You know you’ve nailed it them.

Yeah. Yep, we try to nail it every time.

Is there a question I didn’t ask that you would like me to ask? You can add that. Or something you want to showcase, or a promotion coming up of some kind?

Oh. Let’s see. I would just say if you’re a Husker fan, Saturdays, we always have the game on. Come our way and we’ll make the atmosphere worth it.

You won’t miss it.

Yeah, you won’t miss it because I’ve been wanting to get a lot of Husker fans in here to watch the games and stuff and just have the atmosphere of the game on the Surround Sound and just feel like you’re in the stadium. That’s kind of what I want to do in the next couple of months before the season ends, because Husker volleyball here is crazy. Husker football here is crazy. And also the Chiefs for NFL. And a lot of people like that. But other than that, I think you pretty much nailed a lot of it.

Who are the  owners?

The two owners are Alex Hoeg and Adrian, Hemvree and then Joe Gomez is kind of a business entity, he helped us find a lot of this stuff with Ben Swan and stuff. Ben, he’s our rent guy or landlord, but Ben and Joe know each other, and Joe has helped us a lot with getting a lot of people.

So Ben Swan owns the building, or…

Yeah, he owns the building.

When we were talking earlier, I forgot this. I was in here before any of the renovations happened, and I just can’t believe the transformation. Do you know any of the story on the…

So I believe this is the old courthouse, which what I was told and what I’ve seen. So it’s been a courthouse. I think it’s been a school, and then I know it’s been an oil change place or a car place. He renovated it and all that stuff, and I guess it wasn’t working out or something and he sold it. I know the windows right here, all these windows are the original windows.

Really! I thought you had put all those in.

Nope, those were all original.

It was so dark when I came years before. In. And what about the…

The back window, we put that in there. No, that’s new because the sunlight would just hit both sides.

Those are gorgeous windows.

Those are the original ones. I know the woodwork is the original. The piping is all original as well. Obviously, they probably fixed a few things over periods of time, but all that is original. The brick walls that you see when you walk in are original as well, so it’s pretty cool. I kind of like that they chose this place, because it kind of brings you the Papillion vibe as well. This used to be a courthouse, and when you walk in, you’re like, “Oh, this place is actually pretty cool.” It brings an aesthetic to the place.