Khal Yaghi wished there was a local pizza place that sold large, affordable pies made with fresh, quality ingredients. He called his brother Abed, who was making and selling pizza in New York, where Khal had moved from, and suggested they open a restaurant.

That was 1999. Now there are eight Yaghi's locations: six in the Austin area, one in San Antonio and one in Copperas Cove.

“The way we see the market, there’s the sit-down, brick oven places where you get a 10- to 12-inch pizza with wine, and you end up paying quite a bit for that,” Yaghi said. “Then you have the Domino’s and Pizza Hut chains. But what’s in the middle? There’s a void.”

Yaghi’s aims to fill that void, selling gourmet pizzas without the gourmet pricing, he said. Ingredients are locally sourced, and toppings such as peppers, tomatoes, onions and more are chopped fresh daily. The pizza dough and secret sauce recipe are also made in-house each day, along with meats.

“That’s something a lot of people stopped doing because of the labor and know-how,” Yaghi said. “But our background is in meat. We make our sausage in-house; the meatballs are rolled one at a time; and we marinate and cook the chicken in our stone ovens.”

The Buffalo chicken wings are a customer favorite, praised for their right size, being cooked “just right” and secret sauce, Yaghi added. He said calzones, zitis and the other menu items are never premade; rather they are baked fresh when ordered.

"When you start with fresh bread and sauce, add meats that are all-natural and fresh vegetables," he said, "how can you not have a great product?"