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SewTexas wrote:huh, their, FB page was edited just now, while I was on it. the video was there, with comments, then, it was gone. No posts since Jan 2014. serious damage control.

And now the video is gone:



And now all posts have been cleared from Pi Pizza's Facebook page. It's completely blank:



Jusme, thanks. But I am no Internet sleuth. I can type "google.com" and know only enough to obey one of a detective's basic precepts: follow the money.

And I came up short in my last post. Turns out Lee Ellis's "Cherry Pie Hospitality," the business entity that includes Pi Pizza and other food businesses, is also very new...as in less than a year new. And effectively newer that that (below). Ellis registered Cherry Pie Hospitality LLC with the Secretary of State on 12/14/2015. This is all public record, as are the registered street addresses (an address east of Airline, west of I-45, and north of Stokes that looks like an old, industrial warehouse), the mailing address (a PO Box service in a fairly low-rent area of Southwest Houston), the Texas Taxpayer Number, and more.

Ellis was a founding partner of something called F.E.E.D. TX Restaurant Group...at least that's what the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Business Journal reported. However, no search of Texas Comptroller public accounts turns up any variation of that company name; it has to be registered under something else and doing DBA.

Regardless, Ellis formed Cherry Pie Hospitality LLC in December 2015 then, in April 2016, dropped a bombshell on his partners in whatever-it's-called, and disavowed himself of all knowledge of its actions.

Ellis evidently knew Bradley Ogden and arranged to assume his leases when Ogden left Houston, including Ogden's "Pour Society" in Memorial City Mall, and the new Pi Pizza brick-and-mortar. I'm not a smart guy, but acquiring the locations of failed restaurant businesses to start new restaurant businesses might cause the hair's on the nape of Gordon Ramsay's neck to perk.

Either Lee Ellis is phenomenally wealthy from other sources, or he's the fourth member of ZZ Top that we never knew about.



The guy is making very, very serious money commitments in a period of weeks, yet he has time to stick his boot in his mouth and make social media statements that even a 20-year-old college business student would know not to do.

Something in this whole picture ain't right. Maybe Ellis isn't the '60s perennial hippie he seems to be; maybe he won the Lottery at some point and is playing with nothing but house money. Dunno.

Right now, I'm worried about Anthony Calleo. He's the guy who bootstrapped his Pi Pizza foodtruck from nothing and gave it his blood, sweat, tears, and sleepless nights. For almost five years he grew a loyal and vocal following from that single truck. He earned local network TV segments from that single truck. He retired that truck this year after inking the deal with Lee Ellis.

Calleo is not the guy who caused this firestorm. But he may end up being the one who suffers most.

From anecdotal evidence, I get the notion that Lee Ellis doesn't really care. For Anthony Calleo, it's his life. I guarantee he has not slept in days.

I have no way to know. Maybe I'll go to the blasted restaurant and ask him. But if Calleo is fine with the Second Amendment, and the money-man Ellis is the only profanity-puking anti-constitutionalist, maybe there should be a GoFundMe campaign to get Calleo out from the travesty under which Ellis has buried him.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:Something tells me the "owner's" revenue has not increased by the numbers he claims.... I think the video said he has been open for nine months. Let's look back in a year and see if this delightful follow is still in business.

Actually, the restaurant opened slightly less than one month ago today. For 4 1/2 years, Pi Pizza was a food truck owned and operated by a guy named Anthony Calleo. Calleo partnered with the gracious gentleman in the video, Lee Ellis. Ellis is the money behind the move to brick-and-mortar, and his mouth may doom Calleo's baby barely before it gets off the ground. (And if you want to stay away, Ellis owns Cherry Pie Hospitality, whose properties include State Fare, Petite Sweets, Lee's Fried Chicken & Donuts and Lee's Creamery.)

The stated increases in revenue may well be valid. After all, if you're looking only at your 4th week in business, any data you assume is an indication of trending is totally bogus. Any business person knows you can't determine trends until you establish baseline, and you have zero baseline for a brick-and-mortar in three weeks.

BTW, I checked Pi Pizza's Facebook page last Monday when this first hit, and it had a full complement of chronological posts in its timeline, before and all the way through its delayed opening. That includes the profanity in multiple posts by Ellis directed at a customer who politely and civilly noted his personal opinion. Now, there is an animated GIF thanking Houston for the overwhelming support (the restaurant has dropped from 4 to 2.5 stars in Google reviews in 48 hours) heading a post from September 26, and no other posts appear prior to March 21, 2014. They've pulled them all down, including the ones by Ellis insulting a customer at the drop of a hat.

Hopefully, this means someone has convinced Ellis to get off the keyboard and maybe hire a branding or customer service consultant.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:If he cannot express himself without the vulgar comments, then it speaks volumes about his outlook and lack of respect for others.

It's this precisely, for me. Pi Pizza has every right under Texas law to prohibit LTC holders from carrying in the establishment. I appreciate and respect that completely.

Had Ellis simply responded that he understood, but wished Kyle would consider returning...well, the whole enchilada would have been a total non-issue.

Instead, Ellis's knee-jerk reaction was targeted profanity and "keep your money." It's that response that incensed an entire class of Texas citizens (yep; we're a class, as determined in a year-old pending class action lawsuit). Imagine what the outcry would have been--and the very different media treatment--had it been a different population class that had been insulted. Quick, think of the first three classes that pop into your head.

I don't think we'll have to wait a year, Charles. The restaurant business is a very fickle one. Calleo's Pi Pizza Truck became an icon in the area, and got a lot of media attention for the pizza, in a model that made it's money selling mainly by-the-slice. The truck is now no more, and the brick-and-mortar doesn't sell slices, only whole pizzas...plus, of course, other items including salads and desserts and alcoholic beverages. Whole different business model. But it ain't true that there's no such thing as bad publicity.