A familiar wood-fired pizza joint finds a permanent home in Puyallup

They thought it would be a weekend project.

A year after opening their first brick-and-mortar in Sumner, and two years after launching a mobile pizza oven, Zach and Shanna Johns will open their second Fat Zach’s Pizza in downtown Puyallup, hopefully by February.

“It was kind of a no-brainer,” said Shanna Johns of the brand’s newest address: 621 5th St. SW, the home of Sparks Firehouse Deli since 2008. “It’s the location and style of a building we’ve always wanted for a brick-and-mortar.”

It’s also just blocks from where the company got its start as a pop-up tent at the corner of 2nd and Pioneer.

“This is what we envisioned as a Fat Zach’s,” said Zach Johns. “It’s local, it’s downtown” and it’s focused on the community it serves.

Inherent perks include exposed brick walls, a layout as suitable to families as it is to friends drinking beer, an established customer base — and a gas-powered oven convertible to burn wood.

“Everything that we do hot will always be wood-fired,” said Shanna Johns, from wings, garlic bread and ciabatta breadsticks to the signature, leopard-spotted pies.

Zach Johns sticks with high-gluten Caputo flour imported from Italy for the dough and San Marzano tomatoes hand-crushed with olive oil and sea salt for the red sauce.

There are classic combinations — the Jett with a five-cheese blend, the PolyPig with double-stacked pepperoni, the Mama Rita with mozzarella, basil, tomato and balsamic — and there are house specialties that personify the “Fat Zach” way. Take the namesake pie, a meat lover’s dream with pepperoni, sausage, linguica, Canadian and crumbled bacon, or the runaway hit No Big Dill — affectionately known as the #NBD — with a ranch base, dill pickles and a few shakes of dill weed.

The Puyallup kitchen will add select wood-fired sandwiches, inspired by Sparks.

FAT ZACH’S PIZZA IN PUYALLUP

The Johns are in the midst of “Fat Zach-ing” the interior with mostly cosmetic updates as they finalize a floor plan. They hope to seat about a combined 100 people — at full capacity when permissible and advisable — indoors and outside on an existing patio that will open first, under existing Washington state guidelines.

Visitors to the Sumner restaurant, which opened just a week before the coronavirus halted restaurant service last March, will feel right at home with sports on the televisions and another live-edge wood bar. The Sparks building, owned by Christopher Johnston and his family, was originally zoned as a grocery store, requiring aisles, explained Shanna, and so its long, high-top tables will stay.

“It’s got such great bones,” said Shanna Johns, thankful to have landed it through an “organic introduction” through a mutual friend. Johnston, who closed the deli in November and shared news of his new tenant on Christmas Eve, received plenty of offers on the building, but “his heart was really to find another restaurant that would be owner-operated, and really kind of have a connection with the community.”

Shanna Johns described her hope of seeing their young son play football at nearby Sparks Stadium, and of the restaurant filling on a Friday night after the game with families and friends.

“We know we have some community shoes that are big to fill. That is overwhelming and daunting,” she said, but “we’re going to try and pay homage to the building.”

Being wood-fired, the pizza fits in like the last puzzle piece, capping a two-year journey that has brought the Johns back to Puyallup sooner than anticipated.

Fat Zach’s started as a mobile pizza oven in January 2018, which Zach Johns, a former insurance agent, constructed in the backyard. He watched videos and read books, attended The International Pizza Expo and then won free entry to a wood-fired pizza boot camp in Denver. By April of that year, he had bought a trailer and proceeded to cook nonstop throughout the summer at festivals and private events. In October, he sold his insurance business.

Before opening the Sumner restaurant, Fat Zach’s was semi-permanently affixed to the corner of 2nd and Pioneer, across from Anthem Coffee in downtown Puyallup. They intended to join the development of a two-story taphouse with food vendors outside, but the project has so far stalled due to site complications.

Fat Zach’s halted operations there last March, instead taking the trailer to schools and residential complexes.

Now, said Shanna Johns, who manages most of the behind-the-scenes action, “This Puyallup brick-and-mortar might be our last for a while. People’s habits are going to be really different coming out of the pandemic. ‘Pizza that unites’ — that’s our tagline. We need to go with how people want to eat.”

She imagines a future where there are little Fat Zach’s on every corner: “It only takes us 90 seconds to make a pizza.”

FAT ZACH’S PIZZA

▪ Opening early 2021: 621 5th St. SW, Puyallup, fatzachspizza.com

▪ Open Now: 2160 136th Ave. E, Sumner, 253-987-7332

▪ Food Truck: follow on Facebook and Instagram for schedule

▪ Daily 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; order online or by phone

This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 5:05 AM.