Noted Fort Worth pizza brand Perrotti’s has not only put a fresh coat of paint on the store near TCU but is now making a move.
ALG Holdings Family, LLC, said this week that the Fort Worth restaurant is expanding, with a store opening this month on Sycamore School Road in the burgeoning Chisholm Trail corridor.
The store will open in the former location of La Bella Italy at 5228 Sycamore School Road.
However, this won't be the only new store. ALG CEO Jeremy “JB” Yowell says he has plans to open more with an ambitious expansion plan that will have Perrotti’s doting Google maps in every smart phone.
Order more pepperoni.
“We’re in expansion mode,” Yowell says by phone. “We’re looking to be a multi-chain corporation.”
ALG, based in Fort Worth, consists of different companies in several industries, including commercial and residential real estate, oil and gas, as well as food and beverage, and entertainment. ALG, a partner in Hyenas comedy clubs, also has plans to grow that club across the country, Yowell says. In addition to those assets, other food and beverage holdings include Perk Kafe, a chain of coffee shops in New York City. In May, ALG introduced RetroGrub, a ghost kitchen concept operating out of the commercial kitchen of High Tower Deli & Café in the Burnett Tower. ALG acquired the deli shortly after Perrotti’s.
Yowell calls himself a “legacy brand entrepreneur,” one who acquires legacy brands from owner-operators and renovates and rebrands them.
“Our strength is marketing,” Yowell says. “We own our own marketing agency. That’s our superpower, if you will.”
ALG acquired Perrotti’s and the flagship store in TCU from owner Armando Castillo in February 2021. Yowell says he gave it a rebranding wash and began baking pies from the original recipes of founders Richard Perrotti Sr. ad Richard Perrotti Jr., who opened in 1986.
In fact, Yowell says ALG brought Perrotti back in to briefly consult on the original ingredients.
“We’ve spent more money on ingredients,” Yowell says.
The investment has brought with it a tangible impact, he says. The company very quickly began seeing 75% to 100% more revenue each month.
Yowell, 42, “young and stupid,” he says, at the time, jumped feet first into the real world as a Crowley High School graduate.
His first real job was selling drop shipping websites. To get the job he had to convince an owner reluctant to hire him because he had no experience that he would work for free to prove himself.
“I said, ‘Give me your sales pitch and give me some leads. If I sell these, you make me your sales manager.’”
Both lived up to the bargain.
He left that to learn the oil and gas business, which he was introduced to by a friend he had had to fire at the drop-shipping job. The friend obviously wasn’t bitter.
That experience eventually evolved into Yowell’s Yohawk Energy, which he sold in 2016. With those assets he ventured into other things, including a digital marketing firm he founded with Jamie Kinser and Kinser’s sister Jillian Howell, today an ALG vice president. ALG was formed in 2019. The initials stand for the names of his children.
Perrotti's, like other ALG companies, has been out in the community, recently donating pizza for The Blast, a Cook Children's Health Foundation fundraiser. During the Christmas holiday season, Perrotti's also donated pizza to the Union Gospel Mission and assisted select families with bills.
Sycamore School Road was an ideal expansion location because there was a Perrotti’s footprint in the area. A Perrotti’s, in a former incarnation, had stood on Altamesa, says Yowell, adding that this store will have a drive-thru pickup option.
The area, too, is experiencing a growing demographic that has followed the Chisholm Trail Parkway to south Fort Worth. Single, multi-family, and mixed-use developments are sprouting up along the thoroughfare.
“And they need to be fed,” Yowell says.