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Tastebuds owner Rusty Zoph. (Jonathan Klepping/jkleppinger@jessaminejournal.com / October 10, 2012) |
Wilmore’s pizza mainstay is taking it to the streets, opening a second location right across Main Street that will offer delivery in addition to Italian fare at lunch and dinner.
Tastebuds II Go had a soft opening Monday at 334 E. Main St. in Wilmore and will soon have a grand opening. It is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with phone orders accepted starting at 10:30 a.m.
Rusty Zoph purchased the original Tastebuds pizzeria and soda shoppe in Sims Pharmacy from former owners Gary and Beth Hoenicke in June. The business at 319 E. Main St. had been around for more than eight years but was confined to the hours of the pharmacy because of state and federal law.
“We can only be in operation in a pharmacy like this during the pharmacy’s hours when a pharmacist is on duty, because it is not a secure pharmacy,” Zoph said. “If the pharmacist isn’t in here, the front door has to be locked and all other persons have to be out.”
Zoph also saw delivery cars from national pizza chains coming through Wilmore, leading him to believe the southwest corner of Jessamine County had a legitimate market for a local pizzeria that delivers.
“We just believe that we now have the population that there’s probably not many towns around with this population and this economic viability that doesn’t have a pizza joint in it, whether it be a mom and pop or Papa John’s or Domino’s got in there before anybody else,”he said. “We want to be first.”
The new location builds on the success of Tastebuds’ stone-oven pizza — “the only way to go,” Zoph said — that has become popular with locals and those from out of town.
“We have people that come from all over to eat the pizza; we have people that any time they get back to town want to come in here and eat the pizza,” Zoph said. “It’s a broad claim — we haven’t actually been in the pizza bake-off — but our customers and me personally, before I became the owner, believe that it’s the best pizza in central Kentucky.”
Tastebuds II Go will be a counter-service restaurant that will serve pizza as well as other Italian options like subs, lasagna, penne and spaghetti. The entire menu will be available for free delivery in southwestern Jessamine County with an order of $10 or more.
“We are not fast food, and our new location will not be fast food,” Zoph said. “It’s good food fast, and there is a difference.”
The restaurant will deliver northeast of Wilmore as far as Barkley Woods off U.S. 68 and as far as the intersection with Ky. 29 off Jessamine Station Road. Drivers will not cross U.S. 27. Delivery will be offered east to the city limits and south all the way to High Bridge. The delivery area will include Clear Creek Road and Murphy Lane as well as U.S. 68 west of Wilmore as far as the intersection with Ky. 33.
Tastebuds II Go opened almost a month after the original anticipated start date; the stone ovens for the restaurant became unavailable while the location was being prepared for opening
“We were buying from a man down in Monticello who was closing out due to retirement, and then he found out he had misread his lease on the year — it wasn’t 2012 September, it was 2013 September, and we suddenly didn’t have any equipment,” Zoph said. “We’re in there rehabbing the whole place, and we had no equipment.”
Zoph said he counts his businesses as ministry and that he “makes no bones about” talking about God and praying with customers. While both businesses are closed Sundays, Zoph will host a communion meal at 6 p.m. each Sunday at Tastebuds II Go.
“I don’t mean communion like knocking back a shot of wine and throwing a wafer down my throat; I’m talking about a meal that people are invited to come in,” he said. “We’ll throw out pizzas on the tables, come in, have some pizza, but the focus is that everybody can speak; there’s no pastor; there’s no leader; facilitator is probably the best word that I would use for my position at all.”
For more information, call Tastebuds II Go at 859-858-9934.
