This week, we share our conversation with Nicole Bean, co-owner of Houston-based Pizaro’s Pizza Napoletana. During PizzaCon 2024 in Philly, Executive Editor Denise Greer had a lively conversation with Nicole about top-of-mind pizza business issues, taking on a leadership role in the pizza industry, multiple pizza style and using AI in the business and an in-depth talk about dialing AI prompts.

Bill Hutchinson, wife Gloria and son Matt opened Pizaro’s in 2011. Nicole and husband Brad came on board in 2013. Today, Nicole is president of Pizaro’s, which operates two locations.

In a previous Conversation in Pizza Today Magazine, Nicole said, “ There was a lot of education with customers during the first year and tons of feedback about wanting more toppings and a more substantial crust to hold those toppings from those who didn’t quite understand the concept of Napoletana pizza. We knew our Napoletana was great and didn’t take long to catch on here in Houston, but we wanted to give customers something more. After opening our second and larger location (closer to downtown) in 2015, I went out to San Francisco to Tony’s International School of Pizza to learn to make Detroit-style while also learning Chicago, New York and Sicilian. Matt and I launched Detroit six months after I got back from school. I used only social media and local press to spread the word on our newest baby. Response to our Detroit went better than expected and continues to grow. It was only a year ago (2017) that we launched New York-style, which took us 10 months of development with dough, tomatoes, cheese and market testing.”

The podcast interview took place during PizzaCon in Philadelphia, PA on November 7. Check out a recap of the event: Inaugural PizzaCon a Hit in Philadelphia https://pizzatoday.com/topics/industry-news/inaugural-pizzacon-a-hit-in-philadelphia/.