Why a pizza restaurant 390 miles away chose Huntsville for next location

The Huntsville location of Fatso’s Famous Pizza is at Village Center.

About a year and a half ago, Chet Kiefer opened a pizza place at the campground he owns and operates in Effingham, a city with a population of about 12,000 in south central Illinois.

The idea was to give campers there a place to eat onsite. Kiefer is a big guy, so they decided to call it Fatso’s.

Before launching Fatso’s Famous Pizza, Kiefer tried selling frozen pizzas at the campground.

“We kept changing vendors” Kiefer says, “because we couldn’t find anything good. When you unwrapped the [frozen] pizza, it was like unwrapping a pair of socks on Christmas morning. That’s where I said, we’re going to do it ourselves.”

Pieces of pizza at Fatso’s Famous Pizza in Huntsville, Alabama.

In mid-March, Fatso’s Famous Pizza opened their next location 390 miles away, at a shopping center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Kiefer’s partner in the Huntsville Fatso’s is Matt Kritzer, a childhood friend and restaurant industry veteran. They reconnected a while back and kept in contact on Facebook.

On a trip back to Effingham last summer, Kritzer stopped by to visit Kiefer. He’d seen pictures of Fatso’s pizzas online and wanted to try one. “The pizza tasted even better than the pictures looked,” Kritzer says.

Back in fall 2014, Kritzer opened the first location of Champaign, Illinois headquartered sandwich chain Jimmy John’s in Huntsville, on the downtown square. He later opened more Jimmy John’s in the Huntsville area.

Fatso’s does Chicago tavern-style pizza. Thin crust, square cut, cheese and toppings all the way to the circular crust’s edge.

The Deluxe A Million specialty pizza at Fatso’s Famous Pizza in Huntsville, Alabama.

“I’d been dying for something like a Chicago tavern-style here [in Huntsville],” Kritzer says. He says tavern-style is among the three main types of pizza Chicago’s known for. The others being deep dish and stuffed.

On Wednesday, I stopped by to give it a go.

Fatso’s is in Village Center, whose other tenants range from Bigfoot Donuts and Das Stahl Bierhaus to Black Rose Records and Lego retailer Bricks and Minifigs. That’s at 7914 Memorial Parkway in South Huntsville.

The pizzeria is in a gray and orange painted 950-square-foot space formerly home to a cellphone and computer repair shop.

There are five four-top tables and three two-tops. Floor to ceiling tinted windows up front. A mix of classic hits by the likes of Def Leppard, Duran Duran and Fleetwood Mac plays on the sound system.

For dine-in, you order at the counter, and on this day Kritzer’s young daughter, who’s on spring break from school, is on the register and taking carry-out orders over the phone. She’s adorable, smart and poised, like my awesome 9-year-old niece.

Meanwhile, Kritzer, clad in jeans, running shoes and black Fatso’s T-shirt and visor, runs food to tables and chats up tables. Endearing family business vibes.

We ordered the Deluxe A Million specialty pizza and, on recommendation from Kritzer’s daughter, a Pickle Paradise, another specialty. Fatso’s does 9, 12 and 16-inch pies and we did 12s. About 10 minutes later, they were on our table.

Pickle Paradise specialty pizza at Fatso’s Famous Pizza in Huntsville, Alabama.

Pickle Paradise has cheese, pickles, bacon crumbles and pepperoncini peppers over white sauce. A surprisingly effective combination. Briny pickles, salty bacon, creamy sauce and cheese and crisp thin crust in symphonic counterpoint. Tastes like an appetizer worthy of a whole meal.

The Deluxe A Million is more mainstream, with sausage, pepperoni, bacon, black and green olives, green and pepperoncini peppers, mushrooms, cheese and red sauce. The toppings, well balanced. A tasty, satisfying and accessible eat.

Fatso’s Famous Pizza in Huntsville, Alabama.

Neither pie was heavy or greasy, so no post-pizza snooze. Splitting a 12-inch is more than enough for two humans with moderate appetites.

Fatso’s signature pizzas have whimsical names, like No Forking Way, Garloholic, Sausagefest and Hot Mother Clucker. Kiefer jokes, “Have you ever stood across from a counter and heard an old lady say, ‘I’ll take a Hot Mother Clucker?’ It’s so much fun.”

Pickle Paradise specialty pizza at Fatso’s Famous Pizza in Huntsville, Alabama.

In Huntsville, Fatso’s is working out delivery through third-party services to go along with dine-in and carry out. In addition to pizza, they do chicken wings and nachos. Menu at fatsosfamouspizza.com.

Kiefer and Kritzer looked at other areas in Huntsville to do a Fatso’s. They settled on South Huntsville partly because of proximity to a gate for U.S. military base Redstone Arsenal, which employs many Huntsville area residents.

For years during Huntsville’s ongoing boom, downtown and West Huntsville often drew incoming restaurants. But South Huntsville is on the rise lately, with projects like the Hays Farm development.

Whereas Kritzer had around 20 years with Jimmy John’s, Kiefer’s only pre-Fatso’s restaurant experience was washing dishes at a steakhouse back when he was 15.

Before launching the first Fatso’s at his Effingham campground, Kiefer worked on getting the pizza and process right for about a year. As far as dubbing a new restaurant “famous” goes, well that’s just an old (if mildly eyeroll inducing) marketing trick.

Fatso’s has now also opened locations at other Kiefer Campgrounds, in Terre Haute, Indiana and Sullivan, Missouri. For now, Huntsville is the lone standalone. New Orleans’ Blue Oak BBQ is an example of another out of state restaurant that chose Huntsville for its second location.

Kritzer says, “Bringing it to Huntsville is the test ground proof of concept for us to be able to scale it. I see this as a very strong market. A lot of people are moving here. And then where we go from there, we could go north, we could go south.”

Kiefer adds, “But we’re going to grow at the rate that our quality allows us to grow. When I was growing up, my dad put food on the table and gave us a good life, but when we went out to eat it was a treat. Twenty bucks [the price of a 16-inch Fatso’s cheese pizza] is a lot of money, and I’m not going to rip somebody off out of 20 bucks.”

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