When brothers Brandon and Zane Hunt first launched Via 313 Pizzeria in Austin, Texas, 15 years ago, they couldn’t have imagined that their little food trailer—that’s all it was back then—would lead to this: The city of Austin has officially designated March 13 as Via 313 Pizzeria Day.
The Hunt brothers, who were featured on PMQ Pizza’s September 2021 cover, grew up near Detroit before moving down to Texas, far away from the Motor City’s long, cruel winters. They built their first Via 313 trailer for $30,000. Zane was still working a day job at the time while Brandon focused on their mobile pizzeria. “I was paying myself $250 a week,” Brandon told PMQ. “Zane didn’t pay himself for the first two years. We were reinvesting in the business nonstop. We were working 16 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s no exaggeration.”
They opened their first brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2015, their second in 2016 and No. 3 in 2018. “Then we started feeling stretched and needed to bring in some outside help.” First, they raised their own equity funding in 2016 and 2017—more than $800,000, in fact—but then came Savory Fund. Reps from that group journeyed to Austin, tried the Hunt boys’ pizza and wanted in…