It was pure serendipity that Our Town happened to revisit Fat Boys as it marks its 25th anniversary. To get a small business to that milestone, however, requires a bit more than serendipity.
“I don’t remember much from the time I was 26 to 32,” owner Dave Dec says of Fat Boys’ early years. “No games, no parties – I was always working.”
And he wasn’t always sure all that work was paying off. “There are times now when we are busier in an hour than we used to be in a whole day!” he says.
Even though Fat Boys is now, by any measure, a success, “There’s a part of you that never gets to the point of believing you’re ‘there,’” says Dave.
For Dave, an important aspect of being “there” is being a part of people’s memories of their hometown – just as he remembers the two local pizza places in his hometown. Not that he consciously set out to create memories; he was busy creating great pizza.
“You’re just doing what you do,” Dave says. “You don’t know you’re creating those memories while you’re doing it. People tell you.”
That’s why, in the scheme of things, not much changes from year to year at Fat Boys.
“We strive to make it always taste like folks remember,” says Dave. “It makes them feel good and smile.”
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing new. Fat Boys added a “legit, thick crust deep dish pizza” Dave had been “thinking about for years” – a taste memory from those pizza places he grew up with in the Connecticut/New York area.
Being the “hometown pizza place” means something to Dave. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been 25 years,” he says. He measures the time in the loyal customers; the former employees who come back and tell him that working at Fat Boys was great training for their professional lives, or to share old stories and memories.
Quite simply, Dave says, “We love what we do here at Fat Boys Pizza.”
Fat Boys is at 2040 N. Aurelius Road in the Holt Plaza, 699.2400, fatboysholt.com