The owners of Pizza 311 are pleased to announce the opening of their second location, officially turning the Niverville-based business into a locally owned franchise. The new location is located in the strip mall at 597 Meadowlark Blvd in Île-des-Chênes.
Owner Varinder Ghuman says they’ve had such a good experience serving the community of Niverville that they decided to expand. They learned what people enjoyed and want to bring the same level of service to Île-des-Chênes.
“This is the second location of our first franchise,” says Ghuman. “We opened on April 20 with limited hours, but now we are open full-time.”
New to the restaurant scene, owners Pabhleen Saini and Jonty Vashisht are excited to have bought into the Pizza 311 franchise.
“This is our first business we’ve bought and we wanted a restaurant business because we love all kinds of food,” says Saini. “As we are Indian, we were looking into an Indian restaurant, but could not find a good option. Then we learned about the opportunity with Pizza 311 and it was the right fit for us.”
The couple had recently been on a trip to Italy and enjoyed the food immensely. They said they had always liked pizza, but Italian pizza made them realize how good pizza could be with the right ingredients.
“Then we tried the pizza in Niverville [from Pizza 311] and it was so good,” Saint says. “We could tell the crust was really fresh. And the toppings. Everything is made fresh and we liked that. It’s made with olive oil and the original recipe, all the recipes, are family recipes.”
Saini brings her experience working in accounting, and Vashisht has worked as a conductor with CN. But it was Vashisht’s experience working at the front counter of Tim Hortons that gave him customer service experience and a love for a fast-paced environment.
“I just love working with people,” says Vashisht. “I like meeting new people and then seeing how much they love our pizza and are happy to have it here in town. That makes me happy.”
After one week at reduced hours, the Île-des-Chênes location is now open six days a week, as of April 27.
They are still serving a reduced menu compared to the Niverville location, but they plan to offer the full menu once their convection ovens are installed. They will also be looking to hire a few more positions, including a delivery driver.
The soft launch is enabling the staff to train at a pace that prepares them for the high number of orders that come in at peak times, but Ghuman says that they plan to celebrate with a grand opening soon.
“It was a soft launch, but we are planning an event sometime when the weather is nicer,” he says. “So we can do something nice, maybe in the parking lot, and really welcome the community.”
When asked if there are more locations planned to expand this franchise, Ghuman gave a definite yes, but he would not say where.
“We would like to bring quality pizza with quality ingredients to other rural locations,” he says. “So we are looking, yes. We are looking at anywhere we can find a decent spot. We are trying to grow our brand to smaller communities and provide them with better options.”
Ghuman says that Pizza 311 is known for its high-quality ingredients, such as using extra virgin olive oil in their dough, New Bothwell cheese, and pink Himalayan salt.
