Slice by Saddleback set to open a second location in south Lansing on Monday

LANSING — Nearly a year after Saddleback BBQ owners Matt Gillett and Travis Stoliker started talking about buying a successful wood-fired pizzeria off West Saginaw Highway and launching Slice by Saddleback, they're poised to open a second location.

The new Slice by Saddleback opens at 3135 S. Pennsylvania Ave. on Monday.

The building was previously home to a short-lived mashup that included Detroit Frankie's Pizza & Deli and Good Trunkin' Food.

Gillett and Stoliker bought the building in January when they purchased Detroit Frankie's in Delta Township to start Slice by Saddleback.

The new business has been a success in Delta Township, Gillett said, in part because they've stayed true to the artisan approach to making pizza that Frank Tignanelli, Detroit Frankie's owner, taught them.

Now they're bringing the same approach to south Lansing.

Learning the pizza business

Gillett's assumption about making pizza — that it had to be easier than smoking meat for 15 hours — was proven wrong last winter when he joined Detroit Frankie's staff in their kitchen.

"I thought, 'This is easy. It's just dough, sauce and cheese,'" he said. "It's really not that, and what that experience really opened my eyes up to was that you had to have a good team behind you, ingredients are really important and so is the oven. It was really cool to see how much pride they took in their product."

Gillett said Slice by Saddleback changed very little when they took over Detroit Frankie's, retaining much of the staff, and sticking with the same recipes, techniques and menu.

"We didn't change anything," he said. "It was literally just the same pizza made by the same team."

They slowly added lunch hours and dabbled in some new creations, including a birria taco pizza, a crab rangoon pizza and a Quality Dairy French onion dip pizza.

Meanwhile, Gillett said, they didn't initially know what to do with the building on South Pennsylvania Avenue.

"We considered doing straight barbecue. We considered doing both pizza and barbecue, but we have the REO Town location, which is kind of close, so that was a question mark," he said. "We started doing some work on the building, started having some long conversations and then we really just said, 'We are going to do pizza here.'"

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Coming to South Lansing

Renovations at the 3,000-square-foot building have been underway for months and though there is some work to be done in the space, Gillett said staff are ready to serve pizza.

Between $150,000 and $200,000 was invested to get the eatery ready. That included the purchase of a gas-fired pizza oven with a rotating deck that "emulates a wood-fired oven," Gillett said. It can cook six pizzas at a time.

The restaurant seats 16, though more seating could be added in the future, he said, and there's been some discussion about adding an outdoor patio in the back. It will open with 15 employees, though Gillett said more will likely be hired.

The staff got its feet wet Thursday and Friday, with a soft opening and free pizza offered to residents who live within a 1-mile radius of the restaurant.

"It gave Travis and I an opportunity to talk to the community," Gillett said. "What a great little borough of Lansing that is, just some really good people, awesome families."

The new location will offer the same menu as the Delta Township Slice by Saddleback.

And yes, customers can look forward to occasional specials with unique toppings, but Gillett said the most popular pie is still topped with traditional fixings, such as pepperoni and mushrooms.

"We're still in the stages of decor and things like that, but we felt that we're in a good spot to open up and just proceed with these things as we go," he said.

You can find the new location on Facebook at "Slice by Saddleback - South Lansing."

Contact Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.