Tom Leadabrand of Fratelli's Wood-Fired Pizzeria loves to make food and he loves to serve people.
"If I had the ability to give it all away, I would," Leadabrand said. "It's just fun to do."
Fratelli’s hours of operation: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and closed Sundays.
Website: www.fwfpizzeria.com
Phone: 599-9197 or 524-0766
Leadabrand explained that eating is "very intimate." People go out to eat. Sometimes they "choose us. You choose us to serve you."
He recalled that his love for pizza started when he was working for a pizza store in a mall. He also has worked for restaurants and waited tables. He said he doesn't have a culinary education, but that doesn't seem to slow him down.
Leadabrand has co-owned the pizzeria at 118 S. Broadway St. with his brother-in-law, Scott Jones, since October 2009. The plan to open Fratelli's started earlier that year.
That spring, they had a booth at the Dogwood Festival and served Italian sodas and a carbonated juice drink.
They decided to put the pizzeria in a former candy store downtown, but they ran it as a candy store for a little while.
They created a commercial kitchen at the back of the store. About two-thirds of the building was remodeled. They did most of the work themselves. Friends also helped on the project.
They started serving gelato, an Italian-style ice cream made by a Michigan company. "We get 10 flavors at a time," Leadabrand said.
Some flavors include fresh cream espresso swirl, raspberry balsamic and peanut butter cup.
They started with five pizzas and a build-your-own pizza on the menu. Some of the other items included a side salad and the gelato.
Now the pizzeria has more than 30 pizzas.
"We're always experimenting for more," he said. He doesn't serve something he hasn't had himself.
Before the pizzeria opened, he said, he used his kitchen at home "to cook pizza after pizza after pizza. I had friends and family over to try things."
Leadabrand said he is constantly tweaking everything. Weather impacts cooking and adjustments must be made for this.
About half the menu at Fratelli's is imported, he said.
A unique pizza is the "chef's choice." The chef chooses a pizza to cook at a set price. This day, the chef decided on a pizza that included tuna, corn, onion and red pepper.
Recently, a Fratelli's sponsored a pizza tournament that takes place along with the NCAA college basketball tournament in March. With the pizza tournament, participants fill out brackets to determine which pizza they think will win. The participant with the bracket closest to the correct one wins free pizza for a year. In the tournament, participants receive two kinds of pizza, and they decide which one they like best. The one with the most votes moves on in the tournament until a winner is determined.
"It helps us decide the best pizza of the year," Leadabrand said. This year, the Tirol pizza won the tournament. This especially tasty pizza includes tomato sauce, garlic, mozzarella cheese, speck (which is Italian cured and smoked ham), red bell pepper, spinach; and provolone cheese.
The pizzeria offers pizza specials throughout the year, such as a red, white and blue pizza in July and a pizza with peaches in August.
When asked why the pizzeria doesn't offer beer, Leadabrand explained that the pizzeria opened in a dry county.
"We've built our business without it," he said. "We're not going to serve it here."
Also, licensing is something he doesn't want to handle.
"I think there are people who come here because we don't have it," Leadabrand said.
Before Fratelli's, Leadabrand worked for Walmart radio. The radio employees programmed all the music for the U.S. stores. He worked there for about 2 1/2 years.
At that time, Jones went on a sabbatical in Italy to work on his doctorate. Jones found that he enjoyed true Italian pizza.
"You're at the source of pizza when you go to Italy," Leadabrand said.
With true Italian pizza, everything is clean and fresh, he said. "We have pizza here, but nothing like that. We are not copying American pizza."
He joked that he'd always wanted to open a pizzeria, but there was a problem: "I had never had Italian-style pizza," Leadabrand said. He'd never been to Italy.
After purchasing the former candy store, Leadabrand took a three-day trip to Italy. He and Jones went to Venice to eat as much pizza and gelato as they could.
"There's no shortage of pizza places," Leadabrand said.
They had the opportunity to tour the kitchen of a wood-fired pizza business.
"We got the grand tour," Leadabrand said. He was shown how to work the wood-fired oven.
When cooking with a wood-fired oven, one cannot just leave the pizza. "You have to turn it. You have to watch it," he said. "You really just have to do it. There's a feel to it."
Before it can be used for the day, the oven must warm up for about 90 minutes. If it's heated too quickly, the bricks could crack.
On a busy night, the oven's temperature is between 700 and 800 degrees.
He explained that in 2009 wood-fired pizza was hard to find: "Now it's a trend."
Leadabrand has lived in Siloam Springs since 1998, when he moved to attend John Brown University. In 2002, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in broadcasting.
"I've lived here ever since," Leadabrand said.
He and his wife Mary have four children. They've been married for 12 years.
General News on 06/25/2014