There's a saying about not being able to trust a skinny chef, but what can be said about a short one?
Though it might be a misnomer, Utah County's Fat Jack's pizza chain is the brainchild of Jack Gathercoal, who's more on the short side (5 feet 5 inches tall) than on the fat side of things.He said a friend came up with the restaurant's name, and the business has taken off since it was started as a small family pizzeria in Payson in September 1984.
"It just got to the point in the second month of business where we knew we'd have to hire some outside help," Gathercoal said. "The family just couldn't continue to work 80 hours a week."
Payson hadn't been known as a pizza haven, Gathercoal said, though its Payson Place had been in business for quite some time. He said he hoped his five or six years of experience managing pizzeria chains in Southern California might correct that.
"I wanted to go to work in the town that I live in," he said. "And frankly, I didn't think there was a really good pizza quality in Payson."
He said that Fat Jack's pizza differs from others in its freshness, its dough and in its sauce. All the stores in the chain make their dough fresh every day, including slapping and rolling the crusts by hand.
"Everything we do with the dough is by hand," he said. "We use no machines. Our dough is good and fresh and elastic enough to throw and have it hold together."
All the vegetable toppings are also fresh, and though Fat Jack's sauce is canned, as are other pizza sauces, Gathercoal said his pizzerias add spices and ingredients that give the sauce its distinctive but not too spicy taste.
Only on Friday and Saturday evenings, the chain's busiest, will Fat Jack's actually pre-roll its crusts, he said. "Still, we'll make up your pizza when you order. Not before."
Early on, a lot of friends and neighbors were a bit skeptical, he said. "A lot of them were saying, `Why not Provo or Orem?' but I didn't really want to start out there."
In early 1986, Gathercoal opened a Springville store, which he said also did really well. From there, the chain has progressed into Spanish Fork and Ephraim, and most recently, Mt. Pleasant. Additionally, Gathercoal has just obtained a pizzeria in Nephi which could bear the Fat Jack's imprint very soon.
"Little by little we're growing, but we're not going to get too crazy," he said. "I don't know if I ever see us getting out-of-state, but I can definitely see us moving into Salt Lake County.
"If you get too big, you can lose control of your business and start to lose sight of things, like maintaining the quality and keeping it a family business."
Because of its relatively quick growth as a Utah County business phenomenon, Fat Jack's is now incorporated, and Gathercoal has been selling the stores as a chain. However, he said he intends to remain in charge of things and keep the pizzerias in the family.