Meet the woman putting Crust Pizza on the map in Baton Rouge – The Advocate

Fernanda Collins liked Crust Pizza so much that she became a franchisee.

Collins and her husband, Austin, became fans of the chain when they lived in The Woodlands, Texas. They liked the business so much that she said they would go out to dinner and eat at a restaurant, then head to Crust for dessert. When the couple moved to Baton Rouge for his engineering job, they couldn’t find a pizzeria that matched.

“We haven’t found a place that we like as much, where we have pizza, salads, entrees, desserts, beer and have that nice atmosphere,” said Collins, leaning into Crust’s Millerville Road location. “We thought that was something Baton Rouge was really missing.”

When the couple travels back to Texas to visit Austin’s family, they notice that Cross has a restaurant in Lake Charles. They joked about opening a location in Baton Rouge, but then got serious. Her father-in-law had an office near Crust’s regional headquarters, so they talked to the company about franchising.

“It took us about two years from the time we had the idea until we actually found a place to build and open here. The process of finding a good location. It took us over a year,” she said.

While Collins was working as a graphic designer at the time, she had some roots in the food service business. Collins grew up in Brazil, where her grandmother owned a pizza restaurant.

“Even though I don’t have a background in the restaurant business, I felt like it was something in me growing up like that,” she said.

Crust specializes in Chicago thin crust pizzas that are dramatically different from the stereotypical Chicago deep dish. Deep dish pizza is most like a pie with thick, tall crusts and is usually eaten with a knife and fork. The thin pie has a base that is more like a cracker, and the pie is cut into small squares.

The thin pie has its roots in Chicago’s neighborhood bars, according to Bon Appetit magazine, where it was served as a cheap snack with an after-work beer but didn’t satiate customers before dinner.

The Crust Pizza chain has 29 locations in Louisiana and Texas, with restaurants in Lake Charles, Sulfur and Moss Bluff.

What sets Crust apart is the freshness of the ingredients, Collins said. At least twice a day, the pizza dough is made in the restaurant. All the cheese is grated inside.

“A lot of places can use frozen dough or even frozen vegetables, and I think you can really tell the difference,” she said.

Crust’s Millerville location celebrated its first year in business in August. Additional restaurants are planned to open.

“Our next step is to find another location,” Collins said. “We love Crust, so we really want to bring this to other people.”