By JEFF GUY
Kiowa County Signal
GREENSBURG — Michael Wilson remembers the limited space his staff at Reggie’s Pizza had to work in at the restaurant’s old location on Main Street.
“We were in a small kitchen,” Wilson, owner of Reggie’s Pizza, said. “There wasn’t a lot of room. Looking back I don’t know how we did it sometimes.”
After nearly two months of being closed while preparing the restaurant’s new location at 321 W. Kansas, Reggie’s Pizza reopened last Saturday.
The new Reggie’s Pizza seats the same number of customers the old one did – 44. But now there are 11 parking spaces outside – one space for every four customers. Wilson had 1,500 square feet in the old building. The new building is 3,200 square feet and the kitchen space is triple what it was in the old location. Wilson bought bigger stoves on eBay, enabling staff to make more pizzas at one time and increasing productivity. The stoves were formerly used by Domino’s Pizza.
Wilson has held a variety of jobs since earning his business degree from Fort Hays State University. He was an admissions counselor at his alma mater, he worked in construction, broadcasting, he helped a friend start a jewelry store, but he had never started a business of his own until opening his pizza place in December of 2014.
In high school, Wilson had been in a play where he portrayed a character named Reggie. He took the name with him when he opened Reggie’s Pizza.
As a kid growing up on a farm near Macksville, Wilson would come with his parents to the old Pizza Hut in Greensburg. After being destroyed in the 2007 tornado, the franchise never reopened there. For years, the town went without a pizza place. Wilson saw an opportunity.
“I was surprised nobody had done it,” he said. “There was a vacancy.”
Wilson thought the business would sell 10, maybe 20 pizzas a day. But the day Reggie’s Pizza opened in its original location, there was a line going out the front door.
“People just supported us so much,” Wilson said. “We couldn’t do this without them. We outgrew our space.”
One day in March of 2016, Wilson drove by and noticed the old Adams Electric was closing. People were taking down signs, and Wilson stopped to inquire about buying the building. He closed on the sale on April 1, 2016.
Wilson credits Greensburg City Administrator Kyler Ludwig and City Clerk Christy Pyatt with helping him bring the new location into compliance with city codes. The Greensburg Planning Commission approved his plan.
The structure “was a blank canvas,” Wilson said. “It was a wide open building. We had to come up with the idea of what we wanted the layout to be.”
All the labor and supplies that went into preparing the building came from local businesses, Wilson said.
All 10 of Wilson’s part-time employees returned when the new restaurant opened.
“The restaurant industry is one of the toughest,” he said. “More businesses fail than succeed.”
Wilson attributes the success of Reggie’s Pizza to the public’s loyal following, a great group of employees and a quality product.
“We’re full service,” he said. “We’re not a chain restaurant. Each pizza is made to order. We make them from scratch. We mix our own dough. It’s a quality product.”
Along with the new location, Wilson is looking for new employees. There is a Help Wanted sign in the window of Reggie’s Pizza.
“Just come down and ask for an application,” Wilson said. “Ask to talk to Mike.”