Business Spotlight: Thick Slice carries on Carson City pizza legacy

My first experience at Thick Slice Pizza in Carson City was during last month's Taste of Downtown event. In general, what you get from vendor booths is literally a taste, or two, of their best food.

So when Thick Slice owner Rene Rangel placed a hearty slice of pie that took up most of a full-sized paper plate into my hands, I was naturally taken by surprise.

But, in the end, it wasn't the size that mattered as much as the quality of the eating experience.

That's what new Thick Slice owners Rene and Francisca Rangel are striving for.

"We want to establish ourselves as a great place in the small community of Carson City," Rene said. "We want to make this a place we would want to come every weekend. We just want it to be somewhere where we love to go."

To accomplish this, the Rangels have decided to build upon the success of the previous ownership and the legacy that Thick Slice Pizza has followed.

There is something to the old axiom, "If it's not broke, don't fix it," especially when it comes to pizza in the Nevada state capital.

The Rangels, who took over ownership in May of this year, said the pizzeria's previous owners are descendants of the original owners of the old Nick's Pizza in Carson City and Pizza King in Mound House.

The pizza recipes passed down from Nick's Pizza and Pizza King have remained the same over the years and largely unchanged, he said.

Thick Slice opened more than a year ago, the Rangels said, keeping with the tradition of Nick's and Pizza King.

"There's a huge fan base here in Carson City," Rene said. "I have employees here that, as little kids, remember standing in line for hours waiting for this pizza."

He said that the recipes and pizza-making process are the same, even though some of the ingredients have changed.

"It's slightly different from the way the original owners did it," he said. "When we took over, we followed the way the daughter and the son-in-law had been doing it. The only thing we do different is we brought back better quality ingredients."

Toasted sandwiches, the bread for which is made from the same dough as the pizza, were also reintroduced to the menu, Rene said, and the salad selection has expanded.

To the Rangels, for whom the pizzeria is their first experience in restaurant ownership, better quality ingredients mean small changes like using real butter instead of margarine, and making salads from scratch out of fresh spinach leaves and whole heads of romaine lettuce instead preapred salad mixes.

"We want to make it the best we can," Rene said.

Just about everything to eat at Thick Slice is made in-house. Only the pepperoni and the gluten-free pizza dough are not, Rene said.

The dough, the sauces, even the salad dressings and sausages are made fresh in-house, too, he said.

In fact, on mornings when the dough is being made, the aroma draws people to the door long before the restaurant opens, the Rangels said.

Thick Slice makes its dough every other morning to maximize its freshness, they said, while sauces are made new each day and the fresh produce is prepped daily, too.

"Our hands are on everything," Rene said.

The preparation can be time-consuming, the Rangels admit, but the end product makes it worth the effort.

"We love it," they said abot their pizzeria. "This one's different and it's really great."

Owning a pizzeria wasn't exactly part of the Rangels' long-term plans when they started out first married at age 19.

Francisca had wanted to one day own her own bar and grill, Rene said, but they both had established themselves in other lines of work.

Prior to owning Thick Slice, she had been a registered nurse and he worked as a carpenter and production manager.

"We both weren't really happy in our jobs," Rene said. "One thing led to another and we ended up getting a business consultant to help guide us, because we had never done anything like this."

Now at age 26, the young couple are restauranteurs.

"We tried originally to open a restaurant from scratch, but it was more than we had in our budget, so we looked into purchasing an existing one," Rene said. "This one came along, it was in the budget, and it all worked out."

Francisca said there are new challenges to running their own business, and a restaurant to boot, but this is something they have found they both enjoy doing.

"Every aspect of it is a learning experience," she said. "It's definitely been a challenge, but we like doing it and everything we've done."

The Rangels said local regulars, many of whom are long-time loyal customers harkening back to the old days of Nick's Pizza and Pizza King, have embraced the change in ownership, too.

"One thing I'm very thankful for is a fan base that goes back to Nick's Pizza and Pizza King," Rene said. "There have been regulars of Thick Slice before we took over. Since the new ownership, we've had nothing but good feedback from the regulars."

The fan base, Rene said, are even enjoying the slight changes to the product.

"Just small changes: from the dough's more crunchy, it has better flavor, and it tastes fresher because now instead of making it every four days we make it every two days," Rene explained. "The employees were also excited once they started seeing all the change. And the regulars are excited, and come even more frequently."

The Thick Slice Pizza Company, located at 2010 E. William Street next door to the 99-cent store in the old Scolari's shopping center, now offers online ordering and delivers to all of Carson City, Rene said.

"We're huge with businesses," he said. "We do a lot of business deliveries for lunch."

Thick Slice Pizza is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. (delivery until 8:30) Sunday through Thursday, and from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (delivery until 9:30) Fridays and Saturdays.

Visit the restaurant's web site here to learn more about its history and to view its menu.