Exploring Life & Business with Esther Wood of Zander’s Woodfired Pizza

Today we’d like to introduce you to Esther Wood.

Hi Esther, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My husband, Zackary Wood, and I have always enjoyed cooking together and for years we discussed one day opening a restaurant. We met in college, and he would often experiment with making pizza from scratch. My whole dorm would get excited whenever he would bring his creations over for us to try. After we were married, we moved here to Dickson TN and began working in other fields. By 2015 our lives were hectic, we had 2 young children and he was working long hours away from home. We had a small illness scare with our oldest son and that time was a light bulb moment for us. We knew we wanted to restructure our lives to do something together that the whole family could be included in. We tossed around ideas all that summer, then one day while walking through Downtown Dickson, he came across a building for sale. Dickson was going through their downtown revitalization phase at that time and there was a lot of turn over on the buildings. He came home that night and we began hashing out our plan for a restaurant. On paper, it didn’t make much sense, but we both felt confident that this was what we were being led to do. So we jumped! With the help of a talented friend who had a restaurant background, we were able to start learning and doing. We purchased and remodeled the building and built out the restaurant we wanted. We tested recipes for months, though many of them had already been perfected over the last 10 years at home while were still “just dreaming”. We opened our doors in the summer of 2016, days after the birth of our third child. We have been honored to be a part of the Dickson community for almost 9 years now and we have enjoyed every moment. There is a lot of work that goes into making Zander’s flourish, but there is also a lot of love. We are grateful to be here and grateful to the community that has supported us!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not always been easy. We have had family struggles, difficult financial years, 100-year old building issues, equipment malfunctions, employee hurtles, not to mention COVID. But through it all we have found that prayer, cool heads, calm spirits and a gratefulness attitude will see us through. The Lord has been very gracious at every turn.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Zander’s is a woodfired pizza restaurant located in downtown Dickson TN. At Zander’s we believe in delivering top notch Southern Hospitality with a smile. We pride ourselves on using the freshest ingredients around to create amazing and memorable food. Our dough is made in-house and aged overnight to enhance the perfect depth of flavor. Our cheese is shredded off the block daily and we use only the highest quality toppings. Our salad greens come from a local hydroponic farm and all our dressings are made from scratch. And for dessert, how about some homemade ice cream? We make all our ice cream the old fashioned way with real ingredients and churn it in house, without any artificial flavors or colors. And there’s lots more on our menu!

We also have a Zander’s catering food truck. We can bring the full Zander’s experience right to your home or special event with our on site kitchen, woodfired oven and trained team!

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think that anyone who starts a business opens themselves up to risks. There is the risk of success as well as failure. The risk of accidents or troubles that may not be preventable on our side even when everything goes right. But I think every risk we take has to come from a place of faith. Faith that you are walking the path the Lord has laid for you and faith that He who began a good work will be faithful to see it through to the end. So many times for us, things did not make sense on paper, and yet the urge to press on was great. I think the biggest risk in doing something like this is the opening up of yourself to others. We have taken chances on people, as well as circumstances, and in most cases, I would say the reward has been double the risk taken. In the end, have faith and jump.

Pricing:

• https://order.toasttab.com/online/zanderspizza

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.zanderspizza.com/
• Instagram: @zanderspizza
• Facebook: @zanderspizza