How Khanh Built Zalat Pizza: From Zero Experience to 29 Locations

In this episode, we sit down with Khánh, the founder and CEO of Zalat Pizza, to uncover the full story of how he grew a single pizza shop into a 29-location pizza powerhouse. Starting as a corporate attorney with no restaurant experience, Khánh shares his unfiltered journey of scaling, systemizing, and obsessing over quality at every stage. We also meet Harly Quin (VP of Operations) and Blockchain (Director of Marketing) to hear how Zalat runs tight operations, builds team culture, and leverages data to drive digital marketing success. Zalat Pizza: https://zalatpizza.com/ 📌 Chapters 00:00 – Meet Khánh and the Zalat Pizza story 01:00 – Scaling to 29 locations across Texas 02:00 – Why store number 4 was the hardest leap 03:15 – From law to the line: Khánh’s unexpected shift to pizza 05:00 – Obsessive recipe testing and how Zalat started 06:45 – Why Zalat Pizza quality keeps improving with growth 08:00 – PAX: The secret system behind Zalat’s daily quality checks 09:30 – How bad pizza in Houston sparked a major change 11:00 – Why Zalat centralized dough at store 4 12:00 – Market challenges and consumer spending habits 13:00 – VP of Ops “Harlequin” explains team structure and training 18:00 – Marketing tech deep dive with “Blockchain” 19:00 – How Zalat uses customer data to drive loyalty 20:30 – Ad strategy across Meta, Google, X, and influencer partnerships 26:00 – Why Zalat avoids spammy marketing and tracks conversion closely 27:00 – Tour the Zalat Pizza shop and hear Khánh’s layout philosophy 43:30 – Final thoughts and how to reach Zalat Pizza’s team More From The Slice Community: The Sauce: https://slice.com/community Facebook: https://fb.com/slicepizzaapp Owners Group:   / pizzashopownersforum   Slice believes that local pizzerias deserve all the advantages of big chains without compromising their independence. Slice puts technology, marketing, buying power, and support to work for these shops, empowering owners to build profitable businesses and remain at the heart of our communities. Learn more at slice.com.