South 60 Pizza was Wes Hansen, who owned Mt. Rushmore Telephone Co., who would come with his crews on a regular basis, forming a friendship with the Lintz family. In casual discussions, the Lintzes would say that if Wes ever built in or closer to Hermosa, they’ d love to go into something with him.“ It was kind of just a shorthand conversation,” Brian said, one of those that’ s easily forgotten, and he subsequently went to high school and then to broadcast school, settling into a career in radio.“ Well, in February of‘ 05,” Brian recalled,“ I’ d being doing radio for 8-9 years, and Wes’ s boy Bruce called. I was over at Mom and Dad’ s house having coffee, and the phone rang and I answered it.” Bruce was calling to share the sad news that his dad had passed away of cancer.“ But before he died,” Bruce told Brian,“ he made us promise that we would call you guys if we were going to build any closer to Hermosa.” Well, the phone company had bought property just south of town, and offered to put the Lintz family in there and“ make it work.”
“ I had the quick decision to make,” Brian said,“ if I wanted to try to do pizza and do something like that or just stay in radio. I said,‘ Can I have a day to think about it?’ Bruce said,‘ You can have a day, but we need to get something figured out so we can get moving on it.’”
Brian took his day, and decided he wanted to give it a go, and drew up some ideas on a piece of graph paper. But when Bruce showed up at Jim and Brenda’ s a week later with four engineers, Brian started to get the idea that this was of a scale he hadn’ t been anticipating.“ I thought,‘ Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into?’” His parents’ pizza place on a $ 600 night, with the oven they had, was a two-hour wait for food. This was obviously a different sort of undertaking.
Conversation turned to dickering over rent, and Brian, trying to be realistic with what he thought he could afford, made an offer he was sure would be too low for the phone company, and slid the offer across the table.
Bruce looked at the offer, and said,“ Okay, let’ s do that. We’ re not trying to make money on this. This is to help the community and promote economic development …. We want to give back to each community that we’ re in. In the Hermosa area, this is a way to have more people employed, it is helping the economy locally, we’ re able to help you guys and help out the area, and give them a good restaurant that they probably wouldn’ t be able to have …. My dad thought a lot of you guys. If that works for you, it works for us.”
This community mindset is evident at the restaurant, just by walking in the door.
A Lintz is always behind the counter, whether it is Brian himself, Kristy, or one of their kids. The kitchen is full of young energy as local kids measure cheese and build pizzas and wait tables. Brian sees it as a great opportunity for young folks to learn valuable skills and hone character traits that will serve them well in the future. His grandpa Jack gave him this advice, which he has carried with him and passes on to his employees:“ Whatever job that you have, if you have an opportunity at another job, you take something from that job and carry it into the next. That’ s how you become marketable for yourself.”
Well, with the figures out of the way, the figuring really began. It was time to go into business, and they began seeing a thread of God’ s faithfulness and kindness as they navigated this new adventure and outfitted a new store.
“ When we decided that we were going to do pizza, we prayed on some things, on what we needed. There was a restaurant auction over in the Gap. It was kind of a cold and rainy day and hardly anyone was there. We picked up a walk-in cooler for $ 1. We picked up a $ 2000 make table for $ 250. It seemed that every need that we had was provided for us.”
Not too long after this, a Pizza Hut closed in Rapid City, and for $ 5000 Brian was able to get the oven and hood, tables, chairs, plates, everything they needed to launch their new restaurant.“ Basically, we were able to outfit everything we needed for very little. Anything that we needed, we prayed on it, and it happened. That’ s been the theme.”
September 2005 rolled around and Lintz Bros. Pizza was the newest place in town. Not“ South 60 Pizza,” which was tied too closely to the family ranch to use it again in a different location, but“ Lintz Bros.” a nod to Brian’ s grandfather, Jack Lintz, who spent his life building up his reputation and good name with Lintz Bros. Construction.
Brian worked double-duty for the first several months, working radio early in the morning before going in to the pizza place in the afternoon, and then a curve-ball was thrown: he was unexpectedly let go from his radio job.“ Going into the winter without a guaranteed income, I was pretty panicked,” he said.“ But I was never not able to pay myself something …. Every year, we always did significantly better than the previous year’ s month.” The phone company proved themselves to be great neighbors, allowing the Lintz family to expand from time to time to accommodate more business, and they enjoyed good solid growth for their first 10 years. myblackshillscountry. com Down Country Roads
15