Above: Jimmy and Dan Vennard (l-r), founders of Autumn Arch and Archie’s Pizza.
By Kevin Noonan
Photos by Joe Hoddinott
When Dan and Jimmy Vennard decided to open a pizza place next to their thriving brew pub, the brothers didn’t mess around — they went straight to the top and hired Al the Pizza Buddha.
If you don’t know who Al is, well, you don’t know pizza. The Buddha — whose real name is Alastair Hannmann — has made a career advising pizzerias all over the world about the ins and outs of running a pizza parlor, from the kind of sauce and cheese on the pizza to the number of tables and chairs in the parlor.
The Vennard brothers, along with Jimmy’s wife, Kathryn, are the owners-operators of Autumn Arch Beer Project, a brew pub at the intersection of Pencader Drive and Pleasant Valley Road south of Newark. And now they’ve added a pizza place next door — called Archie’s Pizza — with plenty of support and guidance from the Pizza Buddha.
“He was amazing,” Jimmy Vennard says. “I don’t know how we would have done it without him.”
Before he contacted Hannmann, Jimmy Vennard realized how little he knew about running any kind of restaurant, much less a pizzeria. Since this is the 21st century, he went on the internet and started looking at articles and podcasts about the pizza business. And that’s when he discovered Al the Pizza Buddha. The Vennards were impressed by Hannmann’s reputation and intrigued by his personality, so they contacted him. To their surprise and delight, he agreed to work with them.
“He just took it to another level,” Dan Vennard says. “When we started, we didn’t know how much we didn’t know. But Al knows it all. He knows about the best equipment and the best layout for the restaurant, and even things like how to keep the flow of customers moving smoothly and how to train a staff quickly and efficiently.
“He does this all over the world, and we were lucky to get him to help us.”
Pizza Knows No Borders
If there’s any doubt about Hannmann’s globe-trotting status — he was in Kuwait when he discussed the Vennards with Out & About recently. After leaving the Middle East, he was scheduled to fly to Arizona and then back to Asia — Jakarta, Indonesia this time — before heading home to the island of Kauai in Hawaii.
It’s that international experience and expertise that eventually led to his unofficial title — Al the Pizza Buddha.
“One thing that impressed me with Jimmy and Dan right away was their insistence on doing things the right way,” Hannmann says. “They didn’t want to take any shortcuts, whether that was in the quality of the pizza or the quality of the service.”
One of the first things Hannmann advised was to remember the basics.
Autumn Arch pivoted from having food trucks on premises to opening Archie’s, its own pizza parlor.
“I always tell my clients, you’re not a restaurant — you’re a pizzeria,” he says. “One of the keys to that is to be really strict with the menu. Don’t try and do too much. If you have a menu more than two pages, how do you expect an employee to execute it on a busy Friday night?
“At the same time, you have to be able to serve varied choices, whether it’s vegan or vegetarian or meat-eaters or just the classics,” Hannmann adds. “Really, it’s just a matter of doing what you do well and doing it consistently. That’s the problem most food places have — the food is good one night and not-so-good the next night — and the brothers understood that immediately. They really approached this whole process with the right focus.”
Along with the usual toppings, Archie’s pizza menu includes the Protein Blitz, which is loaded with meat, and the Buffalo Ted, with chicken, red onion, buffalo sauce and mozzarella.
For the less carnivorous, they offer the Presto Pie, with basil, pesto and roasted red peppers, or the Sophistication, with roasted mushrooms, red peppers, artichoke hearts, olives, mozzarella and basil aioli.
Following Hannmann’s advice, the menu also includes pub grub like a Bavarian pretzel with beer cheese, a meatball plate, garlic knots and even cannoli.
Brothers And Brewers
The Vennards were raised in Smyrna and graduated from the University of Delaware with degrees in engineering. Dan, now 42, majored in mechanical engineering and Jimmy, 43, in chemical engineering. Kathryn also has a degree in engineering (industrial) and all three landed jobs with W.L. Gore and Associates, which are pretty good gigs for any engineer.
Archie’s offers customers pizza and apparel.
But the brothers — who had been making home brew for years — weren’t completely satisfied with their button-down jobs. So, in 2019, they took a leap of faith and opened Autumn Arch Beer Project after finding a 5,400-foot warehouse in the Pencader Industrial Park. They started with nine styles of beer and now have produced at least 92 different brews. They even won a Gold medal in 2023 at the prestigious Great American Beer Festival in Denver, where their “All the Love You Won’t Forget” — a Flanders Red Ale — took the top prize in the Belgian Sour Ale competition.
“That just reinforced what we believed all along, and that was we could put out an outstanding product,” Dan Vennard says. “It’s great when a customer tells you that, but even more so when national experts tell you. We knew we make good beer and that was definitely validation on a national level.”
However, the brothers also realized that local craft-beer pubs were starting to suffer from over-saturation in Delaware. That includes Midnight Oil Brewing, which was located nearby in the same warehouse setting as Autumn Arch Beer Project and closed its doors in April of this year after seven years in business.
So, the Vennards decided to expand their hospitality horizons. They would have food trucks parked outside, but that wasn’t something they could completely control. However, they could control their own pizza shop, and it would complement the beer pub. And that’s when they decided to hire the Pizza Buddha.
“I had Jimmy fly down to the international pizza expo in Las Vegas in March and met him in person for the first time,” Hannmann says. “I really picked his brain on what they were looking for, and he made it clear that they didn’t want to open just an ordinary pizzeria. They wanted it to be special and to really enhance their brewery. And I guess that’s why they hired me.”
Hannmann has also shared his world-wide pizza network with the brothers, which has helped them get the right equipment as well simple things like a price break on pizza boxes. For the rookie restaurant owners, Al the Pizza Buddha’s advice has been invaluable.
“We knew nothing,” Jimmy Vennard says, “and he knew everything.”
— For more information about Autumn Arch Beer Project and Archie’s Pizza, including hours and menus, visit Archies-Pizza.com.
