By Dave Justus
Citizens beware! A monster has been loosed upon our fair city. It’s not a vampire - although one bite will have you in its thrall. It isn’t Bigfoot - but its carnivorous image has been captured in a film. And it’s not a zombie - although its story does involve men whose brains make tasty meals.
The creature is Mangiasaurus Rex, a dinosaur from the Crust-aceous era who has survived to the present day on a diet comprised primarily of pizza. Already the beast has built nests in four separate Austin locations, and experts say it will soon conquer our airport and set its sights on neighboring Round Rock. Within five years, they predict that it could dominate the entire region.
Undaunted by such rumors, this intrepid reporter set out to unearth the truth behind Mangiasaurus — its origins, its trajectory, and the valiant team of professionals who work every day to keep its insatiable hunger in check. What you read here may shock you… but it must be told.
I assumed that the beast was the product of underground nuclear testing, or perhaps had been birthed in the lab of a mad scientist. Imagine my surprise, then, upon meeting its affable creator, Jeff Sayers. In 1977, as a nation reeled from the Star Wars, Sayers — then an OSHA inspector training in Chicago — got his first taste of “real” pizza. Over the course of seven years and sampling countless pizzas, Sayers found his true calling, and — after three years spent learning the pizza business firsthand — he and his wife Michelle returned to Texas and hatched the first Mangia restaurant in November 1988.
At first, supplying the Mangiasaurus with its daily meals was a modest affair; in fact, many of the bigger vendors simply couldn’t deliver orders that small. But whereas Sayers could once satisfy his creation with products from a salesperson’s trunk, it now takes literal semi trucks full of food to meet his needs. More than 140,000 pounds of cheese a year find their way to Mangia, along with more than 3 million pepperonis. And though Mangiasaurus has repeatedly asked that the yearly delivery of 156,000 gallons of pizza sauce be used to craft a single, 46-acre pie, Sayers has time and again convinced it to spread the sauce out over thousands of slightly smaller pizzas.
Mangia soon outgrew its original shell and shed its skin on San Antonio Street to nest on West Anderson Lane in early 1992. Shortly thereafter, somebody got it wet or fed it after midnight, because it spawned two offspring: one on Lake Austin Boulevard and another on Guadalupe. The original moved yet again in 1996, into its current Mesa Drive digs. But just before Sayers’ creation assimilated everything in its path, serendipity brought Mark Negro onto the scene to help focus the monster’s mission.
A Hilton Hotels executive hoping to open his own restaurant in San Antonio, Negro met Sayers through a mutual friend and asked him to review the new company’s business plan. But within moments of setting foot in the door, Negro was caught in the unrelenting grasp of the Mangiasaurus. He fell in love with the pizza, even as Sayers found himself impressed by the managerial skills on display in the business plan. Their meeting led to a partnership that saw Negro put aside his own restaurant to instead enlist as Mangia’s co-owner and Head Coach on St. Patrick’s Day 1998… just in time for Sayers to quite literally toss him the keys and say, “Good luck. I’m goin’ to Vegas.”
Negro managed not to burn the place to the ground in his partner’s brief absence, and in fact his skills at corralling the beast have seen Mangia’s star on the rise ever since. Reflecting on the restaurant’s success — it’s been ranked at the top of any number of restaurant polls since its inception, including two top honors from this magazine’s readers and the tremendous accolade of being named Pizza Today’s 2005 Independent Pizzeria of the Year — Sayers couldn’t be a prouder papa.
“Our earliest compliment,” he recounts, “was from a Southwest pilot who came in all the time. He flew into Chicago quite a lot, so I finally said to him, ‘What, don’t you eat any pizza in Chicago?’ And he replied, ‘Well, the pizza here is just as good.’ And that comparison is the highest praise I could have asked for.”
“We’re saving people $600 in airfare to Chicago,” Negro notes. “That’s like the world’s greatest coupon.”
Lest you be tempted to question Negro’s math there, keep in mind that he’s not the number cruncher behind the Mangiasaurus; that honor goes to Jeff Kinniard, the company’s Chief Strategic Officer. Kinniard had been prepared to run the beast out of town with torches and pitchforks after it had terrified his wife into early labor with their second child, but prolonged exposure to the radiating personalities of Sayers and Negro caused him to mutate into a co-owner in 2004.
“The bottom line is, Mark and Jeff are nice guys,” Kinniard claims. “I wouldn’t go into it with them if they were jerks.”
The three owners recently had an opportunity to demonstrate both their similarities and the different perspectives each brought to the table as the keynote speakers for March’s International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas.
Negro is quick to point out, though, that Mangia is “more family than business. It’s a company built on relationships.” They’ve been using the same vendor since Day One; many of the employees have been part of the Mangia crew for well over a decade. More than likely, the person serving your pizza started off as a customer, and was hand-picked for the job because they had that special something — strong customer service skills, shared values, the ability to single-handedly keep Austin weird — that the Mangiasaurus was looking for.
That sense of family extends beyond the walls of the restaurants to include the neighborhoods around them. “People don’t think of a pizza place as giving back to the community,” Negro says, “but we’re involved with the area schools, charities, volunteer work… we’re all family guys, we’re all about the community.”
Little wonder, then, that the Austin populace rallied when news spread that Mangiasaurus had been toppled from his perch atop the Guadalupe store in September 2004. The resuscitative efforts of The Texas Memorial Museum brought the big lizard back to life, and his triumphant return was marked by joyous crowds, media coverage, and a mayor-declared Mangiasaurus Rex Day on October 25, 2004.
Unsurprisingly, the beast let this fame go to his head. Now not content just to show up on the small screen (as in a 2003 Jeopardy! appearance), he demanded a role in the 2005 Tommy Lee Jones film Man of the House, in this reporter’s opinion the absolute finest movie ever produced to feature cheerleaders chowing down on a Carnivore.
Having been linked to ingénue Monica Keena, and fresh off a win for Best Supporting Pizza, the creature’s ego now knows no bounds. With its fourth location (the large and stylish Gracy Farms venue) hitting the one-year mark, Mangia is set to open a 4,000 square foot Round Rock store in the HEB Plus center at 79 and 1460. What’s more, they’ll be partnering with Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for their first licensed location in mid-June, setting up shop on the passenger side of the concourse in a move Negro admits is “a huge feather in our cap. This is the top-ranked airport in the U.S. in terms of food service. They’re strictly local vendors, and we’re thrilled to be one of them.”
The monster cannot be stopped. Teaming up with FedEx, the Mangiasaurus will soon be able to spread its influence beyond central Texas to points unknown. There’s even a catering division which allows the creature access into our very homes.
Try to run, Austinites… try to hide. But if it hasn’t happened already, odds are the Mangiasaurus will sink its teeth into you before long… and he’s not one to let go easily. Consider yourselves warned.
QUICK INFO - MANGIA
Location: 3500 Guadalupe Ph#: 512.302.5200
Location: 12001 Burnet Rd. Ph#: 512.832.5550
Location: 8012 Mesa Dr. Ph#: 512.349.2126
Location: 2401 Lake Austin Blvd. Ph#: 512.478-6600
Type: Pizza
Parking: Large to Medium Lots
Kid Friendly: Yes
Suggested Order: The Carnivore
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