New pizza restaurant Zeeks is taking over Elemental Pizza’s space. Here’s what it will be like

Call it a balancing of the restaurant universe. One Seattle-based pizza restaurant is exiting, and another will take its place in downtown Tacoma.

The closure of Elemental Pizza will happen sometime in August, and the plan is for Seattle-based Zeeks Pizza to take about a week to make a few minor changes and reopen at 1702 Pacific Ave.

No big changes are planned other than bringing the Zeeks recipes, an entirely different style of pizza, to the restaurant.

All Elemental employees who want to stay will remain employed by Zeeks, said Michael Goronkin, the franchisee who is opening the Tacoma Zeeks with business partners Tom Matzelle and Dan Anderson, who own Barking Dog Alehouse in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

The dining room will remain the same and the 16 taps will be put to use with Zeeks own lineup of craft beers and wine.

Elemental Pizza co-owner Steve Rosen noted in an article last week that his restaurant had a tough go at the location, the result of too little marketing and trouble launching a delivery system. The restaurant is exiting Tacoma, but its Seattle locations still operate.

Zeeks, Goronkin said, is uniquely positioned for home and business pizza delivery with the company’s mobile delivery app, online ordering, and an already established delivery infrastructure.

There will be one delivery difference between Tacoma and the market up north. While other Zeeks locations deliver beer and wine alongside pizza, the restaurant in Tacoma will not initially offer beer and wine delivery. It might do so later, said Goronkin.

The Seattle-based company serves a different style of pizza from Elemental, which specializes in pizza cooked in a wood-fueled oven. Zeeks pizza is baked in a deck pizza oven. One reason for the week-long closure is the restaurant has to remove the Elemental wood-fired oven and replace it with a conventional oven, said Goronkin. The signs will be swapped out, too.

The typical Zeeks menu will be imported to the Tacoma location with pizza, bread sticks, salads and wings.

Goronkin has a great deal of experience working in chain and local restaurants. He was an executive with Moctezuma’s, the locally founded chain of Mexican restaurants. He also previously worked at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse in Pierce County.

This story was originally published July 25, 2018 at 1:19 PM.