Two of Wichita’s most loved pizza restaurants are both celebrating 10 years in business
Wichita’s pizza prospects immediately improved a decade ago when two locally owned restaurants opened within about a month of each other.
This weekend, those two restaurants will celebrate their 10-year anniversaries:
Kurt Schmidt’s Picasso’s Pizzeria at 621 W. Douglas turns 10 on Saturday and will mark the milestone with giveaways, a food special and the tapping of a special birthday beer brewed — with pizza dough and tomato sauce in the mash — by Central Standard Brewing.
Just three miles east at 3700 E. Douglas, Ryan and Jamie Verbeckmoes’ Ziggy’s Pizza will celebrate its 10-year anniversary with live music, giveaways and drink specials. Though Ziggy’s opened in late January of 2012, its owners decided to wait to mark the occasion until the weather warmed up and COVID numbers dropped.
The two pizza chains have similar stories: Not only did they open at the same time on the same street, but they also both fortuitously chose spots that they’d watch grow up around them in the decade that followed.
And coincidentally, the Verbeckmoes brothers grew up down the street from Schmidt’s now-wife, Jessica, and have known her for years.
The owners of both restaurants recently reflected on what they’ve learned over the past 10 years and talked about where they hope to take their businesses in the next.
Picasso’s: Big slices, big business
When Kurt Schmidt decided he was ready to open his own Wichita pizza business offering giant New York slices, Delano was not his first choice.
His friend, who would become his landlord, kept pointing him toward some buildings he owned near the baseball stadium on West Douglas, but Schmidt remembers he was resistant.
“I said, ‘No. Delano’s a second or third location. It’s not a destination location,’” Schmidt said. “I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Schmidt, who had worked at Lawrence’s Papa Kenos when he attended the University of Kansas in the mid-1990s, hadn’t advertised at all when he quietly opened his doors on March 5, 2012, assuming most of his customers would be friends. But that wasn’t the case.
Word of his ginormous slices kept spreading, and by the time of the St. Patrick’s Day parade a few weeks later, the restaurant had a line of people waiting to order that stretched all the way to the back of the building.
The 10 years since have been filled with highs and lows, Schmidt said. Two attempts at adding additional restaurants both failed for different reasons, he said. He opened in Derby in August 2014 but quickly determined that the market wasn’t right for his business and closed six months later.
He tried again in November 2017, opening an east-side Picasso’s at 5900 E. Central, where Angelo’s is now. But that one also didn’t work, he said. He couldn’t stretch himself between the new restaurant and the original, and he believes customers were turned off by the appearance that the space had no parking, even though there was a big lot hidden behind the building. He closed that restaurant when COVID-19 started in early 2020 and decided not to reopen it.
All that time, though, the Delano store continued to thrive, and in 2016, Schmidt more than doubled the size of his flagship restaurant when he absorbed the space directly to the east and added a large bar and lots of seating. He’s since added a spacious patio out back as well.
Looking back at his first decade, Schmidt said, he’s so happy he chose Delano. He’s watched the business district grow up around him, and since the new Riverfront Stadium opened last year, he’s always packed with Wind Surge fans on game nights.
Schmidt said he doubts he’ll try to expand again anytime soon. Maybe, he said, if his son — who is a senior in high school — eventually decides to go into the family business. Maybe, he said, if he gets an idea for another restaurant concept.
The key to his success in Delano, Schmidt said, has been his commitment to consistency.
“I’m a hard worker, and I want things to be right every single time,” he said. “We wouldn’t be open if we weren’t consistent. We’ve probably had our bad days, but to make it 10 years, you have to be consistent.”
Picasso’s will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday. The CSB birthday beer, called Pineapple Dough Boy, is a sour IPA and will be for sale only at Picasso’s through the weekend. (The finished product doesn’t taste like dough or tomato sauce, Schmidt says.) The restaurant will also launch a weekend special on Saturday that offers a cheese slice and a 16-ounce CSB beer for $10.
In addition, Schmidt will be giving away commemorative anniversary cups as well as tubes of Chicken Poop lip balm made special for the occasion.
Ziggys: A family affair
A decade ago, brothers Ryan and Jamie Verbeckmoes were two young guys in their 20s who wanted to start a pizza place in their home town. They found a tiny building in Clifton Square, 3700 E. Douglas, and opened Ziggy’s Pizza, whose menu featured the type of rectangular pizzas their mom made when they were kids.
Ten years later, the Verbeckmoes brothers run a small local pizza empire. They have three Wichita restaurants that between them employ about 140 people. In fact, Ziggy’s has grown into a Verbeckmoes family business that’s still run by the brothers but kept afloat with help from their sister, brother-in-law, parents and cousins.
On Saturday, Ziggy’s will also celebrate its 10th year. They expect their party, which will feature live music and the debut of more patio seating at the flagship restaurant, will attract a full house.
On opening day, Jamie Verbeckmoes remembers, he and his brother weren’t thinking 10 years into the future. They and their staff of 10 just hoped to make it through their first service. But the concept caught on, and even though the Clifton Square restaurant was a tight fit, people crowded inside and onto the restaurant’s quaint front patio from the first day.
“We are actually very pleasantly surprised,” Jamie said. “Ryan and I’s dream was to run a pizza place, not three pizza places. We had always expected just to run this little place here at Clifton Square, and then it caught on so much and the community supported us so well that we just decided to give it a shot at one more.”
In 2017, the brothers opened an east-side restaurant at 12115 E. 21st St. North, and they asked their sister, Kristi, and her husband, Jonathan Fenwick, to run it. A year later, they expanded to Wichita’s west side as well, taking over the former Talliano’s spot in Northwest Centre at 13th and Tyler. They took over a neighboring building in Clifton Square in 2019 and opened it as The Hideout, a tiny bar that provides overflow seating for the main restaurant.
The pandemic was a scary time for the brothers, but all of the restaurants survived by relying on carryout business, Jamie said. Now, they’re relieved to be on the other side, and things are feeling back to normal.
Though they don’t have any immediate plans to add another Ziggy’s, Jamie said, they’re always on the lookout for spaces in places like Andover, Derby and Goddard. The brothers, who still run the day-to-day operations for Ziggy’s, now are both married with young families and busy enough with their three businesses, Jamie said, so they’re not in a huge hurry. But if the right space came along, they’d take it.
They’re happy they chose Clifton Square as their home base a decade ago, Jamie said. Although the busy College Hill development is always packed and parking can be tricky, the brothers have watched as the Douglas Design District has become a hopping entertainment destination. They used to be one of only a few restaurants in the area and now they count among their neighbors places like Papa’s General Store, Dempsey’s Burger Pub, The Belmont, The No Bake Cafe, Vora and more.
“It’s kind of amazing,” Jamie said. “It’s our own little pocket of the city.”
They credit their success to their family members and the quality employees they’ve been able to find over the years. Their brother-in-law, Fenwick, was recently promoted to area manager and oversees all three Ziggy’s restaurants. Sister Kristi handles paperwork and marketing. Dad Joe handles some of the business side of the restaurant. The brothers even have an aunt who volunteers to create coloring pages for Ziggy’s youngest diners.
The fact that people love the pizza also helps, Jamie said. Ziggy’s makes its dough fresh every day and keeps things interesting with regular specialty pizzas. People have especially loved their mac-and-cheese pizza and their Nashville hot chicken pizza, which have both run as specials.
“We think our product is really good,” Jamie said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 12:45 PM.
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